French leader backs atom plants
Source: Agencies |
November 26, 2011, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday said it would be madness to reduce the country's huge reliance on nuclear power, despite worldwide wariness after Japan's Fukushima disaster and protests this week over the dangers of waste.
As countries - including neighboring Germany - renounce nuclear energy in the wake of the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant after an earthquake and tsunami in March, France has remained a bastion of atomic power. France depends on it for three-quarters of its electricity, more than any other country.
Sarkozy, expected to run for re-election in April against a leftist who wants to shut down French reactors, argued that abandoning nuclear energy would destroy jobs and cost billions that France cannot afford as it strains to rein in debts and reduce unemployment from nearly 10 percent.
He told nuclear industry workers in southern France: "We do not have the right to break with the political consensus of the last 65 years at the risk of destroying jobs in French industry. It is madness."
He spoke as German police were patrolling a train carrying nuclear waste reprocessed in France to a German storage site protesters claim is unsafe.
French demonstrators clashed with riot police and damaged railway track as the train tried to leave the reprocessing plant in Normandy earlier this week. German police used water cannons on Thursday as protesters tried to block a crossroads at Metzingen, near Gorleben.
This is the first shipment of nuclear waste from France to Germany since Berlin decided to shut all nuclear plants by 2022, following the Fukushima disaster. But officials have not yet resolved where waste should be stored permanently.
In France, leaders on the left and right have been unswervingly devoted to nuclear energy for decades - a strategic choice dating from the oil shocks of the 1970s. That is, until now. The Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande has pledged to shut down more than 20 reactors.
As countries - including neighboring Germany - renounce nuclear energy in the wake of the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant after an earthquake and tsunami in March, France has remained a bastion of atomic power. France depends on it for three-quarters of its electricity, more than any other country.
Sarkozy, expected to run for re-election in April against a leftist who wants to shut down French reactors, argued that abandoning nuclear energy would destroy jobs and cost billions that France cannot afford as it strains to rein in debts and reduce unemployment from nearly 10 percent.
He told nuclear industry workers in southern France: "We do not have the right to break with the political consensus of the last 65 years at the risk of destroying jobs in French industry. It is madness."
He spoke as German police were patrolling a train carrying nuclear waste reprocessed in France to a German storage site protesters claim is unsafe.
French demonstrators clashed with riot police and damaged railway track as the train tried to leave the reprocessing plant in Normandy earlier this week. German police used water cannons on Thursday as protesters tried to block a crossroads at Metzingen, near Gorleben.
This is the first shipment of nuclear waste from France to Germany since Berlin decided to shut all nuclear plants by 2022, following the Fukushima disaster. But officials have not yet resolved where waste should be stored permanently.
In France, leaders on the left and right have been unswervingly devoted to nuclear energy for decades - a strategic choice dating from the oil shocks of the 1970s. That is, until now. The Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande has pledged to shut down more than 20 reactors.
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