It is a unique asset in the world, an exceptional industrial and scientific know-how, an ecological and energy advantage that should be the base of an attractive and prosperous France.
French nuclear is much more than a simple source of energy: it embodies a sector of excellence, a fruit of several decades of investments and innovations. In 1945, General de Gaulle loaded two eminent scientists, Raoul Dautry and Frédéric Joliot, to create an organization capable of establishing French pre -eminence in atomic science. Thus, this same year, the atomic energy police station.
Since that date, France has developed a unique model. A choice that has become essential with the 1973 oil crisis, which highlighted the vulnerability of Western economies in the face of their dependence on fossil fuels. Under the impetus of ambitious public policies, carried out in particular by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and its Minister of Industry Pierre Fourcade, our country has built in a few decades a nuclear fleet capable of meeting both energy needs and environmental requirements , from France and even a part of the continent.
Today, almost 70 % of our electricity comes from this clean and reliable energy, placing France as a world leader, despite the numerous attempts in Brussels and Berlin to undermine this strategic asset, well helped by the abandonments and the cowardice of our political leaders.
Because the European Union, influenced by questionable political and economic choices, has several times favored renewable energies, despite their intermittences and their costs. Under the leadership of Germany, which abandoned nuclear in 2011 after the fukushima accident, French nuclear underwent repeated attacks. Pressures that have weakened an essential industry to achieve the climatic objectives of Europe.
Géraldine Woessner and Ervan Seznec, in their recent book Illusionists,, have also shown that these deleterious choices at European level were strongly influenced by environmental movements which, turning away from science to adopt a kind of almost religious belief, are literally obsessed with the idea of depriving France of the source of ‘Energy emitting the least greenhouse gas.
A decisive year
The coming months will be crucial for French nuclear. Brussels, worked for decades by an anti -nuclear lobby which simply acts against the interests of the planet, prepares several decisions which could seriously compromise the future of this sector.
As of February 26, the energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen will present the European Pact for a clean industry. A roadmap whose quantified objectives already seem to give a very important place to renewable energies, in particular wind and photovoltaics, to the detriment of nuclear energy. A policy that keeps us away from the essential “technological neutrality” which should however guide Brussels climatic policies: let the member states achieve their objectives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, without imposing a type of energy or a sector in particular. A pragmatic approach that would have the merit of returning to nuclear its essential place in the European energy mix.
The European Pact for its own industry seriously threatens the nuclear sector, however the main asset of France and Europe. And the peril all the greater as the next trains of economic sanctions provided by the EU against Russia after its aggression of Ukraine could also penalize, by ricochet, our atomic sector: for several years, part of the fuels used In our power plants are reprocessing uranium (URT). A circular economy practice, where our waste is retired in the Hague in Normandy, then recycled by Rosatom in Siberia, before being returned by ships to France, to give a second life to the fuel. So far, France had defended in Brussels the maintenance of this logistics chain involving specialized ships and insurer. But under pressure from antinuclear NGOs, the next European sanctions pack scheduled for January 2025 may also penalize this URT circuit. So many sticks in the wheels of a French nuclear, already deprived of European funding under the pressure of Berlin.
It should be noted that these environmental movements do not take this position against Russia, but against nuclear. He did everything to make Europe dependent on Russian gas by presenting this fossil energy as a clean and natural energy while the carbon footprint of so -called natural gas is particularly high. The environmental lobbies, well helped, it is true by particularly naive French and European institutions, have managed to play against the planet and make Europe dependent energetically.
Sovereignty of Europe
Why punish an energy which, for decades, has offered a unique industrial advantage to France? While renewable energies, although promising, are difficult to control, nuclear is the only clean energy capable of responding to our needs. For several months, the GAFAMs themselves have been very interested in nuclear. The giants of new technologies, aware of the colossal energy needs to supply artificial intelligences, invest massively in this pilotable and non -carbon energy. This reality leaves a bitter taste: France could have been this energy Eldorado capable of attracting all these strategic investments.
The new government will have the hard task of fiercely defending the last pillar of French industrial, economic and energy power. But the political crisis that know – too! – Our German neighbors may be an opportunity for Paris to regain control on this file in Brussels, to defend our interests and the sovereignty of the continent.
*Arnaud Lacheret is a professor at Skema Business School.