Anti-nuclear protesters demand Fessenheim be shut

Hundreds of protesters have marched outside the Fessenheim nuclear power station in Alsace demanding that the plant, the oldest still operating in France, be closed.

The demonstration, which also included protesters from Switzerland and Germany, came on the sixth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and just days after Fessenheim operator EDF was fined for a coolant leak at the plant in 2015.

Protesters were calling on President Hollande to act on his 2012 election pledge to close the plant. The Fessenheim protest was mirrored by others in Strasbourg, Lyon, Paris and other towns.

The plant was built in 1977 and there have been continuing calls for it to be closed because it is sited on a seismic fault line and its infrastructure is ageing.

Last week EDF was fined €17,000 after a piping failure in 2015 led to the leak of 100m3 of coolant water and the plant shut-down.

The head of France's nuclear regulator ASN, Pierre Franck Chevet, criticised EDF soon afterwards for under-reporting the incident by calling it “lack of water-tightness” when pipes had ruptured – and the repair also ruptured when investigators were at the plant.

A little over 70% of France’s electricity comes from its 20 nuclear plants and 58 reactors but there were fears of power shortages over the new year as several were closed due to safety and maintenance problems.

Fessenheim’s closure has been pushed back until 2018 but there have been problems at its intended replacement, Flamanville in Normandy, where the No1 reactor has been closed since a fire in the non-nuclear area of the plant.