News releases

By decree of the President of the Republic of 4 November 2024, Pierre-Marie Abadie is appointed Chairman of ASN, with effect from 13 November 2024. He will then become the first Chairman of the ASNR in accordance with the provisions of article 9 of the Act of 21 May 2024 establishing the ASNR.

The ASN is submitting for public consultation its draft position on the guidelines for the generic phase of the fifth periodic review of 900 MWe reactors operated by EDF. It is also making EDF's dossier available to the public.

In accordance with Council Directive 2014/87/EURATOM, the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) periodically organises peer reviews on a specific topic for all the Member States (Topical Peer Review - TPR). The topic of fire protection for nuclear installations was chosen for the second peer review.

ASN received the Swedish Nuclear Safety Authority (SSM), chaired by its Director General Michael Knochenhauer, from 25 to 26 September 2024, as part of the bilateral relations between the ASN and its counterparts abroad.

The ASN, represented by its chairman, commissioners, director general and international relations department, took part in a number of meetings and discussions in Vienna from 16 to 19 September on the sidelines of the 68th IAEA General Conference.

In a resolution of 2 September 2024, ASN authorised the launch of divergence operations on the Flamanville EPR reactor. This allows EDF to begin operations to start the nuclear chain reaction in the reactor, known as "divergence".

The eighth review meeting of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management is scheduled from 17 to 28 of March 2025 at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

In late 2023 and early 2024, ASN continued its monitoring of the construction of the Flamanville EPR reactor. It notably checked: the preparation for and performance of hot testing at the end of 2023, to verify the ability of the systems to perform their safety functions during hot operation of the reactor, prior to commissioning, preparedness of the teams who will be operating the reactor, prior to commissioning, the conformity of the nuclear pressure equipment, which notably includes completion of the quality review, the processing of the irregularities affecting certain equipment, and equipment conservation, completion of the installation before commissioning, whether in terms of works, processing of anomalies and start-up tests, with detailed monitoring of the progress of these actions, up until reactor commissioning, the start-up operations following commissioning, notably loading of fuel into the reactor vessel and analysis of the experience feedback from the significant events reported.

The radiotherapy accident, reported to the ASN in June 2024 and classified at level 4 on the ASN-SFRO scale, related to the failure to take account of a previous radiotherapy treatment, is a reminder of the high stakes involved in radiation protection in this field.

External radiotherapy is a treatment technique that uses ionising radiation generated by a particle accelerator to destroy cancer cells. The ionising radiation is administered to the area to be treated in one or more fractions, delivered over one or more days.

On 13 June 2024, the licensee of the Tricastin NPP notified ASN of a significant radiation protection event concerning the potential exceeding of a statutory annual individual dose limit for a contractor from an external company.

The 7th Conference of the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) was held in Brussels on 24 and 25 June. With around thirty speakers, the conference was attended by over 200 participants

The 50th meeting of the Franco-German Commission was held on 19 and 20 June in Berlin and Wannsee, respectively, under the chairmanship of Gerrit Niehaus, Director General for Nuclear Safety and Radiological Protection of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUV), and Géraldine Pina, ASN Commissioner.

On January 16, 2023, Andra submitted a license application to build a deep geological repository named Cigéo to the French Ministry for Energy Transition. In March 2023, this Ministry requested the ASN to lead the technical review of Andra’s application. In June 2023, the ASN deemed the application admissible and referred the technical part of the application to the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) for a comprehensive review. The ASN also planned to call on its Advisory Committee on Waste (GPD) as part of this review.

On May 16, ASN presented its Report on the State of Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection in France in 2023 to the parliamentarians of the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technical Choices (OPECST). On this occasion, ASN presented the subjects on which it was being particularly vigilant with regard to the new nuclear ambitions.