The Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Authority (ASNR) is the new French authority responsible for controlling civil nuclear activities. It entered service on January 1, 2025 and must guarantee the protection of people and the environment against the risks linked to civil nuclear activities in France.
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The ASNR, an independent administrative authority, results from the contested merger of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) and the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). Decided at the Élysée in February 2023 as part of the relaunch of a nuclear program in France, the creation of this authority was voted in April 2024 after a parliamentary battle and strong opposition from both unions and of associations, worried about seeing a decline in public information on the nuclear and the separation between expertise and decision.
Indeed, until then, it was on a dual system born from the lessons of the Chernobyl disaster that the control of civil nuclear activities in France was based with on one side, the IRSN, the scientific safety expert, and on the other on the ASN, the policeman responsible for decisions on the power plants.
Concerns about the functioning of the ASNR
Of the ” uncertainties » remain and the reorganization still remains to be finalized, according to the IRSN inter-union which called “ to be vigilant, more than ever given the uncertainties about the functioning of the ASNR on January 2, concerns about its internal regulations and a budgetary impasse from February », lack of 2025 finance law.
The IRSN CSE issued an unfavorable opinion on the draft internal regulations, a crucial text governing the functioning of the ASNR, on December 17, due to a lack of guarantees on two key requests: the fact that “ explicitly stated in the internal regulations » the independence between the expertise and the decision, just like the “ principle of publication of all expert opinions », in the name of public information, reports the inter-union. Pierre-Marie Abadie, who took over as president of the ASNR on November 13, 2024, assures that “ the ASNR is already fully operational » and indicated that the remarks resulting from the consultations carried out at the end of 2024 would be integrated into the regulation.
Based in Montrouge in the Paris region, at the headquarters of the former ASN, the ASNR will have a pile of crucial files to manage, between the extension of the power plants, the development of mini reactorsthe construction of new high power reactors and the future of fuel cycle facilities. With more than 2,000 employees, it represents the second nuclear regulatory authority in the world, after the American NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission).
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