The Chernobyl accident in 1986 (see p. 16) underpinned the idea that it was vital to have a regulation system that was more transparent, more independent of the industry players and more robust from the regulatory aspect. 2002 saw the creation of the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), a completely independent public institution of the CEA, resulting from the merging of the French Office for Protection against Ionising Radiation (OPRI) – which replaced the Central Service for Protection against Ionising Radiation (SCPRI) in 1994 – and the IPSN. The SCSIN, for its part, after several successive extensions to its scope of action, acquired the status of an independent administrative authority in 2006 and became the Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN – French Nuclear Safety Authority). In the same year, the Act on Transparency and Security in the Nuclear Field (the “TSN Act”) was promulgated, followed by a series of decrees, orders, statutory resolutions, and a recasting of the corpus of the practical guides, gradually replacing the old regulations. In 2011, in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident (see p. 26), the safety of the French NPPs was reassessed via stress tests, referred to in France as “complementary safety assessments”. Nuclear safety: a global common asset The emergence of an international awareness of nuclear-related risks is one of the consequences of the major accidents. In his wishes to the press in 2011, André-Claude Lacoste expressed it strongly: “ASN has an active policy of international cooperation. It considers that nuclear safety must not be a source of competition, but a common asset”. ASN considers that one of the new challenges of global nuclear safety, particularly in the context of the development of nuclear power programmes in emerging countries, is to develop a safety culture and put in place an independent safety authority (regulator) in each country. Alongside these independent authorities, citizens’ associations were created and contributed, with critical and expert positions, to the debate on nuclear-related issues and safety requirements. ■ “I think that the strength of the nuclear sector depends not only on a robust and responsible licensee, but also on a regulator that plays its role in full. This is also what wins the trust of the public, otherwise it doesn’t work.” Dominique Minière Executive Director of the EDF group, in charge of the Nuclear and Thermal Fleet Division from 2015 to 2019 ASN is undoubtedly the second most powerful nuclear regulator in the world. And few people know the key role that André-Claude Lacoste played in defining the international nuclear safety rules when he chaired the Nuclear Safety Standards Committee at the IAEA. Ann MacLachlan Former journalist at Nucleonics week Nuclear accidents and developments in nuclear safety and radiation protection • 5
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