The Gravelines nuclear power plant in northern France is unmissable in the countryside for kilometers around, where dozens of pylons march six abreast, each hung with cables that carry 7 percent of the country’s electricity.
The plant, on the coast between Calais and Dunkirk, is the world’s fifth-biggest nuclear reactor and one of the hardest working — last year, it became the first to produce more than 1 terawatt-hour of electricity. Its six reactors cover 150 hectares and are tended by nearly 2,000 people.
It is also on Greenpeace’s list of “reactors of particular concern,” because of its age. Work began on the plant in 1970, with the first reactors entering service in 1980 and the rest in 1981 and 1985, the year before the Chernobyl disaster.
However, for the people of Gravelines, a small village, the power station is a fact of life.
“It has always been there,” said Debbie Bourdelle, in the local hairdresser’s, Coiffure a Petit Prix. “We don’t think about it.”
“Why would we think about it?” Michel Rodriguez asked. “It’s just there and there is so much security and we have confidence in the engineers.”
France’s relationship with nuclear power is rivaled only by Japan’s. France embarked on a massive building program in the 1950s and 1960s as a nationalist effort to be independent in energy and France now generates more than 70 percent of its electricity from its 58 reactors, of which several are on the north coast. Virtually every French region has one.
The nuclear industry is closely tied to the government — ministers support it, and the national electricity company, EDF, receives high approval ratings. Areva, the nuclear technology company whose headquarters tower over Paris’ business district, is defended as a “national champion.”
“People just took nuclear for granted,” Sophia Majmoni of Greenpeace France said. “They preferred not to have to think about where their energy came from. Even with Chernobyl, they said that couldn’t happen here, we are safe.”
GROWING UNEASE
However, that cozy relationship with atomic power may be unraveling. Even before the near-meltdowns at Fukushima, there was growing unease, particularly among the young. Since the Japanese incidents, a few politicians on the French left have questioned the country’s reliance on a single source of energy.
“This is a big change for France,” Majmoni said. “People are starting to ask questions. We have an election coming up and the Green Party is campaigning on the issue, and [if they do a deal post-election] they will make this the main point, but changing people’s minds might take a long time.”
How long it will take is evident at Gravelines.
“What happened in Japan does not mean there is any more of a risk here,” Bourdelle said, while her fellow worker nods. “It’s not the same.”
This is despite reports of several “level one” incidents in the past five years at the plant, including an emergency evacuation in 2009.
Much of the local economy relies on the power station.
Virginie Daubercourt, a receptionist at the Hostellerie du Beffroi, said: “We have people stay here, people from Areva and EDF. People locally have confidence in how the plant’s run.”
In the Queen Mary cafe in Gravelines’ main square, Joseph Capelle said: “Everyone knows somebody who works there ... so we aren’t worried — we know it is well-controlled, super-controlled, in fact.”
He demonstrated against the plant when it was being built in 1970.
“I was young then, I thought it was dangerous. I don’t now,” he said.
Only a few people admit to any anxiety about the plant.
“I wouldn’t work [there],” said Philippe Cozette, whose claim to fame is that he was the first worker to break through to the English side of the Channel tunnel. “People are worried, I think, they are concerned about their children.”
Maurice Boansville, a bus driver, said: “Some people may ask questions, after Japan. They may start to look at it again in a different way.”
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