The French nuclear success

The French nuclear expertise have distinguished it from the rest of Europe and created a nuclear strategy template that other countries can adopt. The overall pro-nuclear support within the French society is an object of interest, aiming to find out why has France, as opposed to other EU member states, accepted nuclear energy and thrived with it. As shown in the preceding chapter, France’s energy mix is dominated by nuclear energy, where around 70% of electricity comes from nuclear and its nuclear-oriented energy governance allows also for a net export of 57.7 TWh to other countries (World Nuclear 2022). The French nuclear leadership, that generates these beneficial effects of nuclear energy on the market, is grounded in a long history of nuclear research, projects, and policies. The first nuclear pioneers, Henri Becquerel who discovered spontaneous radioactivity in 1896, and Pierre and Marie Curie who discovered polonium and radium in 1898 have set France’s path towards nuclear (I2EN 2022). One of the first nuclear initiatives that France adopted was the 1945 creation of the French Atomic Energy Commission and ten years later a shared project between the

CEA and the state-owned Electricité de France, which opened the very first nuclear reactor in Marcoule (ibid).

From then on, France has been expanding its nuclear sector, in which the 1973 oil crisis and embargo played a catalyzing effect, all the way up to today. The 1973 oil crisis, has brought forward the importance of security of supply, similar to the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war. Since France did not have other energy sources, like gas or coal, nuclear energy was the logical next step (ibid). The following 50 years have continuously grown the construction of the nuclear fleet and innovated the reactor types, like the third generation PWR (ERS) (2007), a nuclear reactor currently under commissioning. In 2021 and 2022, President Macron announced the France 2030 plan, which includes the development of Small Modular Reactors, the building up of 14 new reactors by 2050, and an investment plan of €30 billion. These historical developments of nuclear energy were supported with equivalent policy and legislative changes that the upcoming pages will discuss and led France to have 56 reactors in operation with an EPR reactor underway in Flamanville 3 (I2EN 2022).

The policies related to nuclear energy have been from their start predominantly supporting the growth of nuclear energy. The initial 1960s policies of De Gaulle aimed to promote the French nuclear independence and modernize France with the intensifying of nuclear energy production (Brouard and Guinaudeau 2017:

128). In 1974 the ‘Messmer plan’ was introduced to build 13 new plants and in general, nuclear energy was not contested until 1998 when the Superphénix power plant building plans were canceled (ibid). From then on, 2005 relaunched the plans for the building of the first EPR (European Pressurized-Water Reactor) reactor in France together with guidelines for energy and security (World Nuclear 2022) and in 2009 the French president announced the plans to build a second third-generation nuclear plant in Flamanville (Brouard and Guinaudeau 2017: 128). After Fukushima, in 2011, security investigations were launched, however, no plants were closed, and instead, a life-term extension from forty to fifty or sixty years was debated. During this time period, the EDF announced also a €55 billion investment for the refurbishment of the existing power plants.

In 2013, under president Hollande, one of the first national debates on energy transition was held with the OPECST report as a result (OPECST 2013), promoting further innovation process and tax levies for nuclear to eventually build up other renewable sources of energy (ibid). Furthermore, the 2014 Energy Transition for Green Growth Bill established the new target of 50% nuclear contribution to the electricity supply by 2025 (this goal was however postponed in 2018 until 2035 by the plan to shut down 14 of the country’s reactors).

Then the 2015 law about energy transition was adopted, limiting the nuclear energy production to the contemporary 63.2 GW (Brouard and Guinaudeau 2017: 129). Finally, the 2019 Multi Annual Energy Plan

(PPE) reviewed together with the EDF the French energy policy shared in two 5-year periods, the existing nuclear installations, the potential for building another 3 pairs of EPR2 reactors and the related costs that can be committed for the upcoming 5 years (PPE 2019: 124). These costs have been estimated at €10/MWh in an optimization plan of ‘Grand Carenage’ (ibid) and reflected in the 2021 investment bill of €30 billion for the project France 2030, under president Macron (I2EN 2022). The France 2030 is therefore the latest policy step in which the nuclear objectives, Small Modular Reactors and better waste management are expanded and the plans on further decarbonizing the industry and becoming the leader in other technologies developed (France 2030: 2022).

The overview of these pro-nuclear policy developments as shown in the timeline above suggest that the socio-economic and political factors must have been in favor of nuclear energy and that the societal aspect of the state-society nuclear complex positively influenced the continuous expansion of the nuclear fleet and investments in France. However, what the analysis of the involved actors – namely, the pro-nuclear advocacy groups: the French Nuclear Energy Society (SFEN), the European Nuclear Society and the History of Nuclear Energy and Society (HoNESt); and anti-nuclear movements organized by Greenpeace and the Sortir du Nuclear group, show, is that the public nuclear support was neither uniform nor definite.

Firstly, in general, the French opinion on nuclear energy was in 2018 surveyed by the Odoxa group, which reported that French people viewed nuclear energy as ‘bad, but a necessary evil’ and that the opposition to nuclear energy rose to 53% between 2013 and 2018 (Connexion 2018). At the same time, only 28% of people would pay more to fix the nuclear energy problem (ibid). In 2019 nuclear energy was seen by 47% of people as an ‘asset’, while 34% viewed it as a ‘handicap’ (Statista 2019). Nonetheless, although the anti-nuclear sentiments shown through these figures are stronger than those pro-nuclear, this is not reflected in the French policy developments and even the 2011 Fukushima disaster, defining for other EU states like Germany, has shown only a slight drop in the favorable attitudes towards nuclear (Wang and Kim 2018: 19). As Chafer (1985) suggests, the opposition to nuclear energy may be muted as nuclear became the perceived national symbol and way of French independence. This opposition to nuclear energy, represented by the local level anti-nuclear sentiments and the campaigns and mobilization initiatives of the Sortir du Nuclear group that also provides public resources on nuclear accidents, reasons for getting out of nuclear, and petitions (Sortir du Nuclear 2022), is curious in light of the overwhelming policy support.

The ‘socio-political acceptance’ dimension of the Social Acceptance theory concept partly explains this incongruence, by showing that the most general level of support portrayed by the pro-nuclear policies of the French government is misleading, as it does not reflect the local level dissatisfactions. The ‘community acceptance’ shows that the Sortir du Nuclear, as a local level stakeholder, determines the actual levels of support of the French society for the nuclear energy. The ‘community acceptance’ levels should therefore create a greater impact on the French nuclear energy policies, which is however, not the case here. Employing the state-society complex understanding of the bi-directional flow of influence between policies and the society, exemplified by the French anti-nuclear movements and the most recent France 2030 plan, alternative explanation must be offered for the French nuclear success.

In the analysis of the French energy politics, the key determinant in the mitigating of the anti-nuclear sentiments and thus the acceptance of nuclear energy in the transition policies of France, is the depoliticization of the nuclear question (Brouard and Guinaudeau 2017). As Brouard and Guinaudeau’s research on the partisan misalignment between anti-nuclear sentiments and the French political parties has shown, the fact that the French decision-making process is encapsulated in rigid bureaucratic processes has contributed to the keeping of nuclear power from the political agenda and the difficulty of policy reversal (idem: 126). The French state policy-making apparatus is dominated by the executive as well as experts, scientists, and managers from the nuclear sector, which in combination with the small size and homogeneity of the French scientific sphere (idem: 127), does not give enough space for political debate over nuclear energy. In turn, the polarization of public opinion is limited (idem: 130). As the pro-nuclear groups have shown, the stressed importance is on the developing of knowledge and understanding, rather than facilitating political debate. The French Nuclear Energy Society (SFEN) created in 1973, built education programmes on the place of nuclear energy in our future and publishes White Papers to further promote the building of reactors, ensuring the security of electricity supply and decarbonizing the French economy (SFEN 2022). In regard to the economy, SFEN has also built a new programme that promotes the development of nuclear energy by providing an analysis of the strong ripple effects, in which it is said that each €1 invested in nuclear is going to generate

€2.5 in the rest of the economy (ibid). Similarly, the European Nuclear Society established in 1975 developed position papers improving the understanding of peaceful nuclear applications and the safety steps post-Fukushima (European Nuclear Society 2022). Thus, the disagreement over nuclear energy is not addressed in the political sphere but rather addressed by education through nuclear advocacy groups.

Therefore, the interaction between the pro and anti-nuclear groups with the policymakers has a dual approach.

Firstly, the pro-nuclear groups provide support for the policies and further development of nuclear energy through White papers and education, while the anti-nuclear groups struggle to reverse the current policy direction, given the de-politicization of nuclear energy in the debates. The reason for the difficulty of reversing the policy is that it would be costly, which is a burden no political party wants to take on, and thus not enough electoral incentives have been presented to the French citizens (Brouard and Guinaudeau 2017: 134).

Combining the pro-nuclear consensus in the major political parties and the lack of polarization within the society ultimately leads to the endurance of nuclear energy in France.

Finally, to apply these insights to the Energy Transition Governance Theory and gain the whole picture of the role of socio-economic and political factors in the acceptance – and success, of nuclear energy in France.

The theory aids in the explanation of the role of policy-making in the management of the transition processes through four stages: pre-development, take-off, acceleration, and stabilization. The pre-development stage in which a new thinking paradigm was introduced and external pressure called for a change in order to solve societal problems, was in France triggered in 1974 with the oil shock and the realization that there were no other energy sources available. The introduction of the ‘Messmer plan’ that was aiming to build 13 new power plants was the initial step, that followed on into the take-off and acceleration phases. The continuous policy developments highlighted in the timeline above, culminating in the PPE, exemplified the acceleration of the nuclear policies in France. Ultimately, we can claim with confidence that the stabilization phase is already present in the French society, where the new energy system reached equilibrium. This is illustrated through the French gaining of international primacy in terms of nuclear expertise and its continuation with the nuclear energy ambitions embodied in the France 2030 plan.

Therefore, this section has shown how the acceptance of nuclear energy in a transition process is affected by whether the issue is politicized or not, and how the anti-nuclear sentiments are addressed. While in France, pro-nuclear advocacy groups provided education to increase the community acceptance levels, it is also important to note, that the early adoption of nuclear in France may have contributed to the overall stronger support (HoNESt 2020). At the same time, the view that nuclear energy policies are enduring only because the issue has been depoliticized is limiting. The upcoming section 3.3 will review the objective value-added of nuclear energy to establish how its usefulness in the energy transition may lead to nuclear policy permanence.