France’s great energy debate

Abstract

Many countries rethought their domestic nuclear power programs after the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. In fact, even France—which generates half of the European Union’s nuclear electricity—has a new approach to nuclear power and to energy policy. President François Hollande vowed to reduce use of nuclear power, and his administration is moving to close the country’s two oldest reactors at Fessenheim. The government also plans to sponsor a large public debate on the future of energy policy in France, and that discussion is supposed to include all major stakeholders. It remains unclear, however, whether the debate will be a democratic exercise that influences the policy-making process, or if policy will continue to be determined by the technocratic elites who have guided France’s energy and nuclear programs from their outset.

Many countries—including Belgium, China, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and Taiwan—made post-Fukushima announcements about rethinking their domestic nuclear power programs, or even phasing them out. But France? The country that generates half of the nuclear electricity in the European Union, and that the international nuclear industry sees as a dreamland? The country that has provided uninterrupted political support to the nuclear sector since World War II?

There can, in fact, be no doubt that the current French government has a new approach to nuclear power. No other French administration has ever vowed to reduce nuclear power, as President François Hollande’s has. The president and Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault have confirmed that they intend to close the country’s two oldest reactors at Fessenheim, which have been a constant cause of concern and protest on both sides of the Franco-German border. The government is also planning a large public debate on the future of energy policy, and it is supposed to include all major stakeholders. The question remaining to be answered, however, is whether the debate will be a democratic exercise that influences the policy-making process, or if policy, in the end, will continue to be determined by the technocratic elites who have guided France’s energy and nuclear programs from their outset.

During the summer of 2012, two public comments—one by Minister for Industrial Renewal Arnaud Montebourg (“I believe that nuclear power is an industry of the future”; Reuters, 2012) and another by Delphine Batho, Minister of Ecology, Energy, and Sustainable Development (“France has a permanent need for nuclear power to meet its energy needs”; Le Monde, 2012b)—were enough to make the international media wonder whether Hollande had already shelved his target of reducing the share of nuclear power in the electricity mix from about 75 to 50 percent by 2025. In reality, the mere fact that there is a debate in the country (and beyond) illustrates that nuclear power has become a major political focus in France.

Whatever a future energy-transition bill might look like—and the government plans to pass one before the end of 2013—the orientation of the Hollande government constitutes a rupture with the nuclear policies of the past five decades. ¹

From the start, the French nuclear program was directed, essentially, by the prime minister’s office and the CEO of state-controlled Électricité de France SA (EDF), without public consultation or parliamentary debate. Times have changed since the 1970s, however, and there have been an increasing number of public debates on energy and nuclear policy. The government organized national debates on energy-related issues in 1994 and 2003; in 2005, the National Commission for Public Debate, an independent authority, held public discussions on the first-of-a-kind European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) in Flamanville and on nuclear waste management policy; and 2007 brought the Grenelle de l’environnement, a government-sponsored series of debates among stakeholders involved in sustainability policy. Whether it is because they didn’t happen at a time when important decisions were on the agenda, or because the key decisions were actually made before being debated (as in the case of the EPR project in Flamanville), or because the nuclear issue was not allowed on the table, as in the Grenelle, all of these debates had one aspect in common: They never seem to have affected the course of the French nuclear program.

With far-reaching decisions to be made on investment priorities—including those involving the life extension of reactors, the development of renewables, and the adoption of large-scale energy-efficiency measures—the upcoming debate appears to be the first in decades with the potential to play a substantial role in nuclear policy making. However, the possibility of a change in nuclear energy policy will live or die with the keeping or breaking of a promise of profound change in how democratically the government handles the issue. Ayrault has asked Batho to organize an extensive multi-stakeholder debate over the country’s future energy policy and make concrete recommendations. One of four campaign spokespersons for Hollande, Batho is close to the president. Her ministry has full oversight over nuclear safety. A defense expert with no specific record on energy or environmental issues prior to her nomination, she does not hail from one of the prestigious engineering schools whose graduates make up most of the political elite. She is self-taught, and that background might give her precisely the independent spirit needed to carry out the task of organizing a credible debate about France’s energy future.

In a surprise move, Batho named Bruno Rebelle, former executive director of Greenpeace France and adviser to previous presidential candidate Segolène Royal, to the pivotal position of secretary general of the national energy debate. Following extensive lobbying by opposing forces, however, she had to backtrack, naming a debate steering committee that included, in addition to Rebelle, climatologist Jean Jouzel; Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations, or IDDRI, President Laurence Tubiana; former Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon; and Pascal Colombani, ex-general administrator of the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). The nominations of extravagant “Atomic Anne” and the bland Colombani, who has served on numerous boards of France’s nuclear companies, have triggered fury among many environmentalists and independent scientists. A coalition of nongovernmental organizations, Réseau Action Climat, has noted that “apparently the government wishes to give a choice spot to the nuclear lobby,” and criticized Batho for chairing a committee that is supposed to steer a process that will provide recommendations to …  herself (Réseau Action Climat, 2012a). Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth went a step further, announcing they would not participate in the energy debate under these conditions. Should the government insist on the current outline for the debate, other environmental groups might follow, jeopardizing the exercise from the start. Only a few days after his nomination, Colombani announced that he would not participate in the steering committee, but that move is considered insufficient by the environmental organizations. Instead, Michel Rollier, former co-chair of Michelin, and Michel Mercadal, former vice-president of the National Commission of Public Debates, joined the committee.

Political landscape split on the nuclear question

The conservative opposition party, UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire), stands solidly in favor of a nuclear future. And Hollande’s own Socialist Party also has its fervent nuclear defenders, including Bernard Cazeneuve, junior minister for European affairs and mayor of Cherbourg, a city close to the La Hague nuclear fuel reprocessing site.

The Green Party, Hollande’s junior partner in government, remains firmly opposed to nuclear power. The two Green ministers—Pascal Canfin, junior minister for development, and Cécile Duflot, minister for territorial equality and housing—have no direct oversight of energy policy, but the housing sector is key to any major energy-efficiency initiative.

Ministers Montebourg and Batho are jointly in charge of fissile material management, as well as mining linked to the energy sector. Montebourg has been known as a critic of nuclear power. His website contains a pre-election piece entitled “Overcoming Nuclear Power,” in which Montebourg writes “one must recognize that nuclear power …  can only be a transition energy. Everybody knows that we have to phase out at one moment or another” (Montebourg, 2012a). In another blog post, Montebourg writes that “the Japanese nuclear crisis illustrates that our development model, instead of guaranteeing prosperity, could destroy us” (Montebourg, 2012b).

The Fukushima crisis has, in fact, had a big impact on key political players and public opinion. In the wake of the accident, former Socialist Party Chair Martine Aubry and her successor, Harlem Désir, came out explicitly in favor of a nuclear phase-out. Ten days after the disaster in Japan, Aubry declared: “I think we should get out of nuclear power … Considering what happened at Fukushima, it cannot be like before, and we must immediately enter this energy transition” (Energie2007, 2011). Reacting to the German nuclear phase-out decision, Désir, then vice-chair, stated: “Personally, I think, we should prepare for phase-out, even if it will be long. It is one more reason to start right now” (Desir, 2011).

The political class being split on nuclear power, the question remains whether the government will take responsibility for the energy sector or perpetuate the historic mandate it has granted to elite, pro-nuclear technocrats.

It’s all in the question …

Public opposition to nuclear power has grown substantially. It is increasingly obvious that the French public strongly embraces a non-nuclear future, if it is given a choice—but it is still wondering whether it has a choice.

Various post-Fukushima opinion surveys have indicated massive support for a nuclear phase-out—up to 77 percent according to several polls, including one by the French polling firm IFOP (IFOP, 2011). In fact, according to IFOP, the share of people who favor a progressive phase-out over 25 or 30 years increased to 62 percent from 51 percent between March and June 2011. Support for a rapid phase-out slightly decreased to 15 percent from 19 percent, while opinion in favor of the continuation of the program and the building of new nuclear plants shrank to 22 percent from 30 percent. However, a more recent survey (Harris Interactive, 2012) indicates a paradox: A majority of French people polled (53 percent) consider the German nuclear phase-out a “good thing” (33 percent) or even a “very good thing” (20 percent). Meanwhile, 64 percent ² approve of the French decision to maintain nuclear power “as the main energy production source.” At the same time, only 5 percent of the people polled say they are “very satisfied” with their country’s energy policy, while 46 percent say they are “satisfied.”

Fukushima dramatically changed the French perspective on nuclear power. The Chernobyl accident had been dismissed as a Soviet-made disaster that, for technological and institutional reasons, could not happen in France, but even nuclear safety officials have conceded that Fukushima “has thrown into question all of our safety rules, our ways of thinking” (Butler, 2012). The nuclear program, usually described as a major contributor to energy independence, is increasingly perceived as a contributor to dependence in its own right, as pointed out by then-candidate Hollande in a televised presidential debate when he stigmatized France’s “double dependency on oil and on nuclear” (Le Monde, 2012a). Yet, people need to feel assured that a nuclear phase-out is possible before they can decide if this is what they want to do.

The Corps des Mines: Still in charge

The current government has provided no clear political guidance on the future of nuclear energy. This attitude has provided elite technocrats the space to continue to impose their strategies on political leaders. Members of the Corps des Mines—a minuscule super-elite of engineers ³ who constitute the most prestigious of France’s “grand corps,” and who graduate mainly from the military school École Polytechnique—occupy practically all the top positions in the design, implementation, and control of energy and nuclear policy. The Corps des Mines has shaped nuclear policy from the start in France and guaranteed its continuity throughout decades of changing presidents and governments. There are not many members of this elite clan, but they are everywhere when it comes to decision making on energy issues.

In Hollande’s office, a Corps des Mines engineer holds the position of industry and energy adviser, and at the Office of the Minister of Ecology, Energy, and Sustainable Development, a corps member is responsible for renewable energy, grids, energy efficiency, and reform of the mining code. At the Economy and Finance Minister’s Office, the corps holds the key energy adviser position. Former Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon and her successor at Areva, Luc Oursel, are Corps des Mines engineers, as well. Four representatives of the corps are on the board of state oil company Total. Long-time President of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), Ingénieur en Chef des Mines André-Claude Lacoste, reached the employment age limit and retired from ASN early in November 2012, only to be replaced by Pierre-Frank Chevet, another corps member. The National Radioactive Waste Management Agency, the French Environment and Energy Management Agency, and the Interministerial Delegation for Sustainable Development are headed by representatives of the same elite technocratic engineer corps.

In the absence of strong political leadership, elite technocrats might well be able to impose the perpetuation of their decades-old energy strategies, in particular in areas like plutonium separation and use, which have attracted little or no public attention since the new government came in.

There are other political forces that will attempt to put the brakes on change in energy strategy. All of the major trade unions ⁴ oppose the closure by 2016 of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant, which houses France’s two oldest reactors. The ultra-pro-nuclear communist trade union CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail) has maintained its stance after Fukushima, arguing that a nuclear phase-out would require nuclear facilities to be replaced with natural gas power plants, leading to higher costs and import dependency. Wind and solar would be five to 10 times more expensive than nuclear, according to CGT. A long energy transition should lead to a progressive phase-out of fossil fuels, CGT argues, but it should also maintain a nuclear power component, including reprocessing and new reactor types (CGT, 2011).

The position on nuclear power of the business federation Mouvement des Entreprises de France (MEDEF) is illustrated by its choice of director general, Michel Guilbaud, engineer of the Corps des Mines and former head of the electricity service in the Industry Ministry. As the president of MEDEF, Laurence Parisot, stated in a recent interview: “Nuclear is another one of our assets. But how to export our know-how if we ourselves reduce our generating capacity and appear to be doubting?” (Usine Nouvelle, 2012). No nuclear doubts permitted.

Pro-phase-out: Scientists, environmentalists, and antinuclear activists

A group of independent scientists and technicians, négaWatt, has been at the forefront of the debate around the technical and systemic aspects of an energy transition in France. The négaWatt scenario, released in 2011, describes in great detail how a complete system change from fossil fuels and nuclear to efficiency and renewables is feasible in France. This approach to energy transition advocates a complete nuclear phase-out by 2032 (Association négaWatt, 2011). Another expert group, Global Chance—led by Benjamin Dessus, co-author of a major report in 2000 on French nuclear economics for then-Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, and Bernard Laponche, a well-known energy expert whose career runs from the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1970s to the Environment Minister’s office in the late 1990s—regularly contributes to the debate. In 2011, Dessus and Laponche published a book, End Nuclear—Why and How, in which they called for the phase-out of nuclear power and drafted a road map that showed how to get there (Dessus and Laponche, 2011).

The most unexpected about-face of a French scientist was undoubtedly physicist Jean-Louis Basdevant’s call for the country to “rapidly exit current nuclear [power].” Basdevant has taught physics for 35 years at the prestigious École Polytechnique, an institution for France’s engineering elite. In a stinging book titled Master Nuclear Power—Exit Nuclear Power After Fukushima, he writes: “We have to face reality. Our societies are not mature enough for the use of nuclear power under current technological conditions. If an acceptable level of safety emerges one day, it will be in a long time” (Basdevant, 2011).

France has a lively environmental movement that ranges from nature conservation to climate change and includes explicitly antinuclear groups. The broadest alliance is the French chapter of the international Climate Action Network (Réseau Action Climat), which links 18 national organizations involved in climate-related work. The climate groups are asking for an immediate shutdown of the Fessenheim reactors and the “reorientation, starting today, of the investments toward alternatives [to nuclear power], which are energy conservation and renewable energies” (Réseau Action Climat, 2012b).

Greenpeace is as active on nuclear issues in France as in other countries. The largest antinuclear organization is the Réseau Sortir du Nucléaire (Network phasing out the nuclear age ⁵ ), a federation claiming 944 French organizations and 58,500 individual members. The network is calling for the shutdown of all operating nuclear facilities in the country and a transition to a renewable energy-based policy. It has labeled the nominations of Lauvergeon and Colombani to the steering committee for the energy debate a “sinister farce” and a provocation: “How can one talk about an energy transition and democracy while soliciting personalities who represent the nuclear lobby at the level of caricature?” (Réseau Sortir du Nucléaire, 2012).

Democracy or technocracy?

How will the great national energy debate play out? High expectations have been put into it; the government promised a democratic exercise that was to provide a platform for all stakeholders to influence the decision-making process in an area that has never seen real democracy. So far, no major strategic decision in the energy and nuclear sectors has ever been voted on in parliament. The government has missed the opportunity to provide an appropriate road map for the debate. Political power seems to remain within the old structures dominated by elite technocrats in government and industry. It might be a mix of economic difficulties—including the financial problems of state nuclear companies EDF and Areva, which are under huge pressure from increasing operating costs, massive investment needs, and heavy debt burdens—and public opinion that could force the politicians to impose an energy transition onto a technocracy that does not want any change.

One thing is certain: The French love new, soft renewable energy sources, just as people do in other countries. Their enthusiasm for solar power was such that France would have reached its 2020 target in 2012 if the Sarkozy government had not shied away from the costs and axed the program. ⁶ It remains to be seen whether the Hollande administration will follow through with an energy transition that, no doubt, would be immensely popular with the public, but would also be fought by significant parts of the establishment.