An accident would be a failure for us all

This man is on a mission. "My goal is the following, said Andre-Claude Lacoste: If there are nuclear power, it must be safe." Eyes dark, square head and profile of rugby player, the President of the nuclear safety authority French (ASN) wants break with what was known in the 1970s "french cooking" the idea that everyone should shake elbows and contribute to the prosperity of the nuclear sector hexagonal. But if its dynamism is respected by his colleagues of foreign control authorities, he spent more and more for activism in his own country. This does not dislike ecologists as Frederic Marillier, Greenpeace, which has "observed positive changes" to the ASN, even if he dares not yet assert that it is "a real evolution." But it's starting to seriously upset the industry, who fear that the zeal of Andre-Claude Lacoste and his teams Vienna undermine their chances to take full advantage of the announced revival of nuclear power a little everywhere in the world. "On a case to a destructive orientation", one of them loose.

It must be said that the ASN does not fail an opportunity of blame them publicly since its formal inception in November 2006, with the entry into force TSN on transparency and security of nuclear. Last may, after having found technical shortcomings, it has forced EDF to suspend the Flamanville site, where the Group constructed the first third-generation nuclear reactor, the famous EPR. More recently, the electrician was PIN to a "risk of explosion" in pipes of a plant and on the overall management of its nuclear fleet. In 2007, the Director of Atomic Energy (CEA) site Saclay of Commissioner was call from an incident in the treatment of waste. For its part, Areva was typing on fingers after the events of last summer in its subsidiary Socatri at Tricastin. In October, the Group also was berating for the lack of supervision of subcontractors...

"The Dalton to Crunch City."

This last point of order is the drop of water which was straw. It is said that Anne Lauvergeon, Chairperson of the Executive Board of Areva, has very little appreciated the DSC press release. In the aftermath, she would have been a frank explanation with Andre-Claude Lacoste. Unfazed, the veteran of the atom responds with the whooshing that characterizes: "we are paid to say 'no', step systematically course, but for our ability to say"no". It most often says two years "I do not think, I believe even it would be reached at the bottom of the same way before the TSN Act, but the new status gives us more independent and more visibility." In fact, this statutory status of independent administrative authority, whereas before, which was still called the Directorate of nuclear safety and radiation protection (DGSNR) was placed under the supervision of departments of ecology and the industry. Moreover, the new text imposes a duty of information and transparency on the industrial.

This propensity to say "no" maintains that certain harmful climate. "When inspectors arrive in Central, it is the Dalton brothers who landed in Crunch City," complains a backpackers of the trade. 450 Agents of the authority are about 800 inspections per year on basic nuclear installations and about as many facilities say proximity (offices of Radiology...). "They behave as a rogue, most seek to respect our work, said another." You never know what will down us on the corner of the mouth. "But issues abound: next year the safety authority must proceed to decadal visits to conclude whether or not, two EDF reactors based in Fessenheim and Tricastin may lengthen life of thirty to forty years. What are the oldest in France. Their visit has value of test for the whole of the Park. But the ASN will also continue to monitor the Flamanville site. And, here, any delay could cost dear to EDF, in financial terms but image also.

Right to information

Opponents of Andre-Claude Lacoste appreciate very moderately hard to apply the famous section 19 of the Act of 2006. It gives the citizen the right to information for all nuclear safety and radiation protection. Thus, last year, Greenpeace asked Areva of the information on the transport of plutonium between British plant of Sellafield and its site in the Hague. The refusal of the group, the association turned to the patron of the ASN, which in June sent a letter to Anne Lauvergeon asking him to "reconsider" its response. "We feel responsible for the proper application of the law," he says in its offices in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, in contrast to the headquarters of its citizens, based to the West of the capital. However, this general concern for transparency can pass for the policy, even with the Greens. "The ASN communicate, but this does not mean that it gives more information", judge Roland Desbordes, the President of the Commission for research and independent information on radioactivity (Criirad).

"Against his camp".

The fiercest of the die, which sometimes are the architects of the nuclear program of the 1970s, argue flatly that DSC plays against his camp. When the Constable of nuclear pinned Areva on its subcontractors, "the next day, all competitors said that we were working as of pigs, to constitute a framework of the group, which wants to remain anonymous." He moves to show his muscles. "This person alleges that André - Claude Lacoste did not help French companies abroad and, at the time of penalized with their international competitors. He wants proof reserves of the ASN on the development of nuclear power in emerging countries. At the risk of contradicting the President of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, very pressed to sell power plants in the Middle East, the Authority estimated that it will take at least fifteen years for the countries of the region put in place the necessary infrastructure. What discourage candidates!

The risk of complicity

Right in his boots, the person concerned does not bronchus. Andre-Claude Lacoste is convinced that nuclear power is a common good and that need an even less serious than Chernobyl accident so that this energy source is permanently banned. All countries interested in the topic must be a truly effective security authority, according to this sixty-seven-year-old man who regularly travels the world preaching this message. "The responsibility is not only national, beyond our borders, he said. An accident would be a failure for us all. "Bernard Dupraz, the pattern of production and engineering at EDF, acknowledged that,"if it is never pleasant to be stigmatized in public, it is in our interest to long term to have a credible control authority ". That is why, moreover, that some ecologists suspect Andre-Claude Lacoste secretly want to rehabilitate nuclear power by giving it a cleaner than clean image.

"This is the trap," he says. If we are indeed that nuclear power is safe, we accused be pronuclear. But we are not proponents of nuclear power. "Andre-Claude Lacoste did not deny knowing the leaders of the groups it monitors he touch Anne Lauvergeon and Pierre Gadonneix to have crossed them to other positions in his career but refuses the mixture of genres. "I do not belong to the nuclear community, if I belong to a community, it is to that of the control authorities." "". "Lacoste wants to have this image of L'EMMERDEUR and think that it will be the clear relationship of complicity with the nuclear", considers a connoisseur of the environment. The person is in any case the risk of such collusion. "In the crash of the Crédit Lyonnais, nobody said nothing for not putting at risk the reputation of the financial hub of Paris", found in October at a symposium organized by the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, Paris. At the time of the Madoff case, which clearly illustrated the faults of the regulation, and experiencing a renaissance of nuclear power, his fears were a particular ECHO.