Focus on France Ian Sparks reports from Paris

EURO-REPORT

FOCUS ON... France

Ian Sparks reports from Paris on the backlash against nuclear power.

French energy giant EDF has been fined €1.5 million and seen two of its executives sent to prison for industrial espionage after a company ‘spy’ hacked into the computers of Greenpeace.

State-controlled EDF – which runs the French electricity industry and operates eight nuclear power stations in the UK – was found guilty of snooping on the environmental lobby group in a bid to learn more about its anti-nuclear energy campaign in 2006. A court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre heard how EDF hired the economic intelligence company Kargus Consultants to uncover details surrounding Greenpeace’s antinuclear strategy.

Amongst other key nuggets of information, bosses at EDF wanted advance warning of Greenpeace’s plans to disrupt the construction of a new nuclear power station in the Normandy town of Flamanville.

They engaged Kargus computer hacker Alain Quiros, who managed to steal confidential files from the computer of Greenpeace’s French campaign director Yannick Jadot – who is now a spokesman for France’s Green Party presidential candidate Eva Joly, who is pushing for France to abandon nuclear energy.

Quiros was given a six-month jail term in a delayed judgement yesterday and a €4000 fine. Two Kargus executives and two senior EDF officials in charge of company security were also given jail terms and fines. EDF’s security chiefs Pierre-Paul Francois and Pascal Durieux was also jailed.

Judge Isabelle Prevost-Desprez said she found it ‘hard to believe’ that both men had been acting alone and without the knowledge of EDF executives, as the company had claimed.

She sentenced former policeman Francois to three years in prison and former Navy rear admiral Durieux to one year behind bars.

EDF as a company was found guilty of complicity in computer piracy and fined €1.5 million, plus €500,000 in damages to Greenpeace and €50,000 to Mr Jadot at the trial which ended on 11 November.

Mr Jadot said after the hearing: “This is a triple zero for EDF. Nuclear energy is industrially bankrupt, financially bankrupt and clearly morally bankrupt.”

A Greenpeace spokesman added: “This sends a strong signal to the nuclear industry in France that it should no longer consider itself to be above the law.”

EDF continues to insist that the hacker had been hired without its knowledge and their lawyer Olivier Metzner has said the compnay intends to appeal the verdict and sentences.

Dire consequences

Meanwhile, as the court case was ongoing, EDF’s chief executive Henri Proglio was giving a speech in Paris in which he warned of the ‘dire consequences’ for France’s energy needs if the country cuts back on nuclear power.

France has 58 reactors producing around 80 per cent of its electricity – and making it the world’s most nuclear-dependent country. But Mr Proglio told the Electricity Union seminar in the French capital that electricity prices could double if France switched to a mixture of gas and renewable energy sources to supply its power needs.

Abandoning nuclear power would also send CO2 emissions soaring by 25 per cent and cost more than €400 billion in new power infrastructure, he said. Gas imports would also cost the country a further €12 billion a year.

Mr Proglio added: “Today it’s not possible to efficiently replace the nuclear park without having to massively switch to gas or coal.”

The disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant earlier this year has triggered a nationwide debate over the use of nuclear energy in France, and is becoming a key issue in next year’s presidential election.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling UMP party wants to keep nuclear energy, while Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande has promised to cut nuclear capacity by up to 50 per cent by 2025.

Germany has already announced it will quit nuclear energy altogether by 2022, while Belgium’s political parties last month agreed to abandon nuclear power by 2025, as long as the country has enough energy from other sources to prevent shortages.

Mr Proglio said: “France would be heavily penalised by doing the same thing. France would lose one of its major competitive advantages. We need to hope for realistic choices and bet on common sense.”

But EDF clearly does have a back-up plan to maintain power supply should the socialists win power next May. The company has teamed up with Irish technology specialist OpenHydro to build and install two giant undersea tidal turbines off the coast of Brittany.

The €40 million project will include four 2 megawatt turbines – that are 72 feet high and weigh 850 tonnes each – being installed at a depth of 115 feet off the town of Paimpol-Brehat. Once completed in late 2012, it will be the world’s largest tidal power project and able to provide electricity for up to 4000 homes.

A spokesman for EDF said of the project: “We are developing new renewable energy sources working alongside our provision of power from nuclear reactors. Along with solar power and wind turbines, tidal energy is an important energy source that is underutilised at the moment.

“And a major benefit of tidal turbine farms versus wind and solar farms is that they operate unseen. From the surface, the turbines are invisible and noiseless and have no effect on the neighboring communities.” n