IRRS follow-up mission to France - October 2017

49 11.2. OCCUPATIONAL RADIATION PROTECTION 2014 MISSION RECOMMENDATIONS, SUGGESTIONS S24 Suggestion: ASN and the General Direction of Labour should clarify their requirements regarding the radiation protection programme during the authorization process, especially for the installations concerned by the higher risks, including BNIs. S25 Suggestion: ASN should consider the need for providing guidance on a graded approach of the implementation of the optimization principle. Information collected through inspections should be used in order to ensure coherence in the approaches already developed or still to be developed in installations where ionizing radiations are produced or used. R15 Recommendation: The Ministry of Labour in close co-operation with ASN should assess and agree on how to provide ASN inspectors and when appropriate the CPR, with a timely and complete access to workers doses recorded in the national dose register (SISERI). S26 Suggestion: ASN should take advantage of the launch of the national inspection program for radon in the workplace to improve compliance. Changes since the initial IRRS mission Suggestion 24: Ordinance n°2016-128 issued 10 February 2016 introduced the clarifications requested by ASN on the authorization process for higher risk installations. It made explicit, for BNIs, that the collective radiation protection measures for the radiation protection of workers are under the responsibility of the operator. Thus, the operator’s compliance with radiation protection principles (justification, optimization and limitation – cf. article L. 593-42 of the CoE) is required from the design phase through to the decommissioning phase. The operator’s responsibilities are without prejudice to any responsibilities of the employer. In particular, this clarification makes explicit the requirement on the radiation protection program as regards the authorization process of BNIs, since this authorization process is set as part of the BNIs legislative and regulatory framework. The new legal system recognizes the possibility for ASN, if needed, to develop additional generic requirements for each category of practice or individual requirement in the frame of the authorization process. These changes also concern all practices submitted to authorization in the Public Health Code as prescribed in Art. L. 1333-7 and Art. L. 1333-8.-I.To clarify the responsibilities of the operators and of the employers, the Public Health code provides that: “Art. L. 1333-27.- The prescriptions, means and measures aiming at protecting the health of workers from ionizing radiation, implemented pursuant to the present chapter and chapter VII of this title concern the collective protection measures to be taken by the party responsible for a nuclear activity and designed to ensure compliance with the radiation protection principles defined in Article L. 1333-2. These measures concern the design, operationand decommissioning phases of the installation and are without prejudice to the obligations incumbent on the employer in application of articles L. 4121-1 et seq. of the Labour Code.”