Activists invade French atomic site
Source: Agencies |
December 6, 2011, Tuesday
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GREENPEACE activists secretly invaded a French nuclear site before dawn yesterday and draped a banner on its reactor containment building, embarrassing the government and exposing the vulnerability of atomic sites in France.
Police, whom Greenpeace told immediately of the publicity stunt, took several hours to round up nine intruders who had broken into the power plant in Nogent-sur-Seine, 95 kilometers southeast of Paris.
France, which gets about three-quarters of its electricity from nuclear power, regularly faces protests from environmental activists over shipments of nuclear waste. But activist incursions into atomic plants are unusual.
Greenpeace said the break-in aimed to show that an ongoing review of safety measures - ordered by French authorities after a tsunami ravaged Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant earlier this year - is focused too narrowly on natural disasters, and not human factors.
Activists who tried to enter three other French nuclear sites in the coordinated action yesterday were stopped, but Greenpeace said other invaders were holed up inside other, unspecified, nuclear sites.
That prompted authorities to immediately launch a "thorough sweep" of all of France's 20 nuclear power plants, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.
Interior Minister Claude Gueant will launch a review of the security breach, Brandet said.
French power company Electricite de France, which operates the site, denounced the "illegal" break-in at Nogent-sur-Seine and insisted that it did not harm security at the site.
After Greenpeace alerted authorities that its members were behind the incursion, police and security teams held their fire and allowed the activists to continue scaling a containment building that houses the reactor to put a banner on top, Brandet said. The activists didn't penetrate the reactor.
EDF said activists' banners were also hung on the outside of two other nuclear sites - Chinon in northwest France and Blayais in the southwest. Three activists were driven off by security forces while trying to enter a plant, in southeastern Cadarache.
"We have to understand what's behind this malfunction - notably in Nogent," Brandet said.
EDF said it had no indication of intrusions at other sites in France.
"Greenpeace has shown how vulnerable French nuclear plants are," said Sophia Majnoni d'Intignano, a Greenpeace activist.
French TV showed pictures of activists with banners reading "Coucou" (Hey) and "Facile" (Easy).
D'Intignano told i-Tele television that the government's forthcoming report will conclude nuclear plants are "very, very safe, because it's believed that they could withstand a flood or an earthquake."
"But those aren't the real risks," she added. "It's the risk of external attack - like the risk of terrorism."
Henri Guaino, a special adviser to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, acknowledged the intrusion "makes you think about the security of access to nuclear plants."
Police, whom Greenpeace told immediately of the publicity stunt, took several hours to round up nine intruders who had broken into the power plant in Nogent-sur-Seine, 95 kilometers southeast of Paris.
France, which gets about three-quarters of its electricity from nuclear power, regularly faces protests from environmental activists over shipments of nuclear waste. But activist incursions into atomic plants are unusual.
Greenpeace said the break-in aimed to show that an ongoing review of safety measures - ordered by French authorities after a tsunami ravaged Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant earlier this year - is focused too narrowly on natural disasters, and not human factors.
Activists who tried to enter three other French nuclear sites in the coordinated action yesterday were stopped, but Greenpeace said other invaders were holed up inside other, unspecified, nuclear sites.
That prompted authorities to immediately launch a "thorough sweep" of all of France's 20 nuclear power plants, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.
Interior Minister Claude Gueant will launch a review of the security breach, Brandet said.
French power company Electricite de France, which operates the site, denounced the "illegal" break-in at Nogent-sur-Seine and insisted that it did not harm security at the site.
After Greenpeace alerted authorities that its members were behind the incursion, police and security teams held their fire and allowed the activists to continue scaling a containment building that houses the reactor to put a banner on top, Brandet said. The activists didn't penetrate the reactor.
EDF said activists' banners were also hung on the outside of two other nuclear sites - Chinon in northwest France and Blayais in the southwest. Three activists were driven off by security forces while trying to enter a plant, in southeastern Cadarache.
"We have to understand what's behind this malfunction - notably in Nogent," Brandet said.
EDF said it had no indication of intrusions at other sites in France.
"Greenpeace has shown how vulnerable French nuclear plants are," said Sophia Majnoni d'Intignano, a Greenpeace activist.
French TV showed pictures of activists with banners reading "Coucou" (Hey) and "Facile" (Easy).
D'Intignano told i-Tele television that the government's forthcoming report will conclude nuclear plants are "very, very safe, because it's believed that they could withstand a flood or an earthquake."
"But those aren't the real risks," she added. "It's the risk of external attack - like the risk of terrorism."
Henri Guaino, a special adviser to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, acknowledged the intrusion "makes you think about the security of access to nuclear plants."
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