Prison, fine threat for revealing nuclear danger in France

A leading French anti-nuclear activist has been threatened with years of imprisonment and an enormous fine for publishing a secret report that shows a new type of reactor would not withstand an airliner crashing into it.

Comment of the Castor-Nix-Da editor's office:

• Here the Link on the French side..
  Télécharger le dossier "Confidentiel défense"

Stephane Lhomme, the spokesman of "Reseau Sortir du Nucleaire", an alliance of 650 anti-nuclear organisations, was last week held 10 hours in arrest (garde-à-vue) by the DST secret service before being released at 11 p.m..

“But it is probable that they will attack again with a trial with the possible result of a long time in jail and a heavy fine,” his organisation says. Five years and 75,000 euros are being mentioned.

“For now, it seems they still actively search for the person in EDF who forwarded the secret defence document.” (EDF is the state-owned electricity corporation, Électricité de France.)

Contradicting the statements of French authorities, the secret report about the new type of European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), says it wouldn’t withstand a plane crash.
The group resisting nuclear dumping in Gorleben, north Germany, has declared itself solid with Reseau Sortir du Nucleaire and promised to publish the secret report in Germany.

"Keeping secret highly politically charged public safety concerns demonstrates in a most shameful manner the fine line between using atomic power and the democratic rights of responsible citizens,” writes the Gorleben group, which is a member of the French alliance.
"Instead of criminalising our friend and comrade-in-arms, Stephane
Lhomme, a publicly visible debate about the risk factors in atomic energy use should be conducted.
“Our members call on the French government to see to it that the actions against Lhomme are stopped.”

The German transnational Siemens mega-company has co-developed the EPR. An EPR is already being built in Olkiluoto, Finland, and one is planned in France near the plutonium-producing waste processing factory at La Hague in northern France.

In nuclearised France atomic power is hardly ever publicly discussed. It’s either a military secret or taboo.
EDF advertising calls the EPR a “third generation” reactor, but it is by and large a classic pressurised water reactor. It is claimed to produce 15% less waste, but the waste disposal problem remains unsolved anyway.