His name was proposed in May by the Elysée, then validated at the end of October – not without some reservations – by parliamentarians: according to a decree published this Wednesday in the Official Journal, Pierre-Marie Abadie was officially appointed by Emmanuel Macron to the presidency of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), then the future Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Authority (ASNR), a single authority which will replace the ASN from January 1, 2025.
The current director general of the National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management (Andra) will take office on November 13. He will thus replace Bernard Doroszczuk, whose non-renewable mandate ends the day before. He will then have to tackle the final stages of the process of creating the ASNR on January 1, resulting from the contested merger between the ASN, the policeman of nuclear power plants, and the IRSN, the expert institute in the sector, both born in the early 2000s from the lessons of the Chernobyl accident.
“Tense” calendar
The creation in January 2025 of the ASNR, decided at the Elysée, was approved in Parliament at the beginning of April after a parliamentary battle and strong opposition from both unions and associations, worried about seeing the public information and the separation between expertise and decision. The law, which aims to “streamline” decisions to revive nuclear power, was promulgated on May 22. Heard on September 24, the current president of the ASN Bernard Doroszczuk however indicated that the timetable for the entry into force of the new organization was “tense”.
At the head of Andra since October 2014, Pierre-Marie Abadie’s mission was notably to lead Cigeo, a project for the deep burial of the most radioactive waste from the French nuclear fleet. This contested project is being tested and researched in an underground laboratory in Bure in the Meuse. Initiated by the government in 2006, it is currently under investigation at the ASN. But Pierre-Marie Abadie promised that once appointed, he would step aside from the file and would no longer deal with Cigéo “for the entire six-year mandate”. He also clarified that he would not participate “in any of the discussions and decisions relating to installations and decisions which directly concern Andra”.