This is another reform which is less talked about but which is also rejected by the main concerned. In full relaunch of French nuclear power, the government announced on February 8 its intention to abolish the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) watchdog and expert in radiological risk, to “streamline the examination process”. Faced with this project, the Board of Directors (CA) of the IRSN voted on Thursday a motion alerting to a risk of “paralysis” of nuclear safety, we learned Friday from the inter-union.
“The board of directors alerts the government and calls for vigilance on the risk of departures of IRSN personnel which could lead to paralysis of the radiation protection and nuclear safety control system”, indicates this motion voted by a very large majority ( 18 votes for, 4 against, 2 abstentions), according to the institute’s inter-union.
With the abolition of the IRSN, experts and scientists would join the teams of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN, the civil nuclear police) and the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). The unions thus fear the end of the “dual” structure of the French security system (ASN/IRSN), some seeing it as a way of bringing the institute into line. They also fear that the research branch of IRSN, which provided expertise, will go to the CEA.
Symbolic scope
The IRSN Board has 25 members, including one deputy, one senator, ten representatives of the State, five qualified personalities appointed by decree and chosen for their competence in the Institute’s field of activity, and eight elected representatives of the establishment’s staff.
If this motion has a “symbolic significance”, with regard to the composition of the Board, “it means that representatives of the State voted for this resolution”, according to the intersyndicale, which sees in it “a first recognition of this that we defend”. A “diaspora” of IRSN experts “would have the effect of depriving France of its research and expertise capacity at a crucial time marked by the challenges of extending the lifetime of existing reactors and creation of next-generation reactors,” the motion points out.
The AC also reminds the government in this motion of IRSN’s role in “the protection of workers, the population and the environment against ionizing radiation with a broad spectrum, crisis management and post-accident situations, the uses of radioactivity in the industrial, medical and military fields”.