The unions of the Nuclear Expert Institute fear that its independence is breaking the transfer of its skills and its staff to the nuclear security authority, responsible for the strategic piloting of the sector.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
The government announced Thursday, February 23, the launch of four working groups that will work on the precipitated and controversial transfer of the transfer of the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), Vigie and Risk Risk Expert in France, to the nuclear security authority (ASN), a nuclear gendarme, in full revival of the atom in France. These groups will focus on the transfer of missions, working conditions and the attractiveness of professions, on the regulatory developments to be expected and on financial subjects.
These projects will be carried out for three months by the leaders of the two organizations in consultation with their staff, parliamentarians, anchored (the Federation of Local Information Commissions, installed around each power station in France), detailed the Cabinet of the Minister of Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
The government announced on February 8 its intention to remove the IRSN by explaining that it was a question of “fluidifying the examination processes”. According to the ministry, this reform must “devote the independence and transparency of the French nuclear safety system”, “strengthen the skills and power of action of the ASN” and “increase the attractiveness of nuclear security trades “.
credibility
According to the project, IRSN experts, technicians and scientists – some 1,700 people in total – would join ASN, nicknamed “the nuclear gendarme”, because it makes the decision to authorize or stop power plants, based on the technical expertise of IRSN, among others.
The implementation of the reform will take a year at fifteen months, underlined the cabinet which, alerted by the unions, believes that the sectors of technical expertise and strategic management should remain “separated”. Opposed to the reform, they accuse the government of wanting to “eliminate in forty days an organization which has taken forty years of being built” and which guarantees the credibility of the French nuclear system, by separating expertise and decision.
Employees fear not only to decrease the independence of the organization, but also to see the transparency of the opinions of IRSN experts disappear, published independently, when the State and EDF want to launch A new nuclear program and prolong aging power plants beyond fifty or sixty years.
The ministry admitted on Thursday that he could not “answer” the question of whether IRSN’s opinions would be published before or after the ASN decisions. “The subject will have to be very precisely posed,” said a manager.
After a first strike – rare – on February 20, the IRSN inter -union announced a new notice for February 28.