WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #334 - Reviving the anti-nuclear movement (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

The government has trumpeted a revival of nuclear power, both civil and
military. Beyond the announcement effect, beyond the important questions
about its technical and financial feasibility, at least for the civil
sector, anti-nuclear people must wake up to prevent this deadly
aberration. ---- This whole year has been marked by an attempt to
(re)build the anti-nuclear movement. It started with the "great national
debate" on the revival of nuclear power. You have probably never heard
of this debate, which was a legal obligation, and on which the
government did not want to give too much publicity. This debate included
several dates, by video and each time in a different city. In November
22, it took place in Paris, and the anti-nuclear activists gathered
there, mainly from La Hague and Bure, decided to hold a general assembly
the next day. We decided to choose one of the dates of this
pseudo-debate as a place of national convergence. Tours was chosen for
its central position. The debate was to take place there last February.
The government chose to cancel it. And, lo and behold, there were still
around 150 of us who came roughly from the entire northern part of
France to disrupt a debate which we knew was no longer taking place, but
above all to meet us. The anti-nuclear assembly was launched.

It continued in Paris on June 3, with a few more people, and in Bure on
July 8 with fewer people. This is where the name "national anti-nuclear
coordination" was chosen. This choice is perhaps not wise; in fact,
there is not yet a real movement to coordinate, but the name is
undoubtedly not the most important. What is important is the desire of
the different anti-nuclear currents to try to work together to oppose
the relaunch. And we're coming a long way! I am not only referring to
the differences, which persist, naturally, but to our weakness and the
fact that the anti-nuclear fight which was a major point of protest has
almost disappeared and the green agenda of the youth and protest
movements in general . These meetings continued at Larzac during the
Résistantes, on August 6, with many people; this is where its creation
was publicly known thanks to a (fairly misleading) article in
Reporterre, and in Bure on August 26.
In July, we considered what we could do together against the relaunch of
the nuclear program. We will try to gain strength throughout the year.
The first appearance was to be in joining the Day for the Abolition of
Nuclear Weapons, September 23. This posed two problems. On the one hand,
there was also a demonstration against police violence that day - some
gatherings were moved to be able to participate in both. On the other
hand, despite asking for our support, opponents of military nuclear
power were not really ready to tolerate speech against civil nuclear
power. In Paris in any case, they were forced to endure it. The next
joint day will take place on October 22, on the theme of nuclear
pollution. In Larzac, the workshops took place by region, and a regional
structure was therefore launched. Each region will determine the form of
this day.

Anti-nuclear coordination "red card for nuclear power" - Bure, Maison de
la Résistance, July 8, 2023
Contrary to what Reporterre announced, the anti-nuclear movement has not
reunified. But the idea is that by working locally together, we will be
able to reestablish links and undoubtedly get closer. For the moment, we
are building ourselves and trying to build a movement, a mobilization
capable of disrupting the relaunch of nuclear power, perhaps with a
central location, in an event which will take place at the beginning of
June 2024. We are constrained by the dates of the Olympic Games, during
which all mobilizations will be prohibited.

The precise framework for this anti-nuclear coordination has not yet
been defined; this should be done at the next assembly, in December.
Operation is currently very flexible. There is no spokesperson, a
rotating working group of contacts with the press is defined at each
assembly. Each region organizes itself as it wishes and as it can.

The current situation is very paradoxical. On the one hand, the nuclear
recovery program is completely unrealistic, at least for the civil
sector, when we see that they cannot resolve any of their technical
(corrosion, cracks, etc.) or financial problems, that in addition they
have just lost one of their sources of uranium in Niger. The civil
nuclear program around the world continues to decline and is therefore
increasingly marginal. On the other hand, there is a political and media
steamroller in France which completely ignores what is happening in the
rest of the world and presents nuclear power as an eco-friendly energy
source, and the anti-nuclear movement is moribund. It would perhaps not
take much to shake up a sector which has demonstrated its energy
inefficiency (we are still waiting for an EPR to produce electricity),
its staggering cost (see the state of EDF's debt) and its dangerousness.
A sector which, contrary to the assertions of Jancovici and others,
aggravates climate change and its consequences (it is a very
water-intensive sector which pollutes all major rivers[1]), both
physically through its mode of energy production than by the
productivist and capitalist world to which it is indissolubly linked.

Sylvie, October 19

Note
1. Cf. "Nuclear power sucks our water!"», Alternating current n° 330,
May 2023.

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