Greenpeace protest in nuclear plant

ACTIVISTS from Greenpeace have managed to penetrate security at a nuclear power station just 95km from Paris, sparking urgent searches at other sites across France.

The Interior Ministry demanded nuclear plant operators EDF and Areva carry out the searches to find out if security at other plants had failed.

Greenpeace said at an afternoon press conference outside the breached plant at Nogent-sur-Seine (Aube) that it wanted to show how vulnerable to attack the sites were. It said campaigners managed to get to the centre of the Nogent site in just 15 minutes last night and unfurled a banner from the top of one of the buildings.

Several power stations were targeted and this afternoon the prefecture in the Gironde announced that an inquiry had been launched into a bid to get into the station at Blaye, 60km north of Bordeaux.

Ladders were found against the security fence at the Cadarache plant in Bouches-du-Rhône and a protest poster was fixed to the fence round the Chinon plant, south-west of Tours in Indre-et-Loire.

French Industry Minister Eric Besson appeared stunned when he spoke on FranceInfo radio and said that, if true, there "must have been a dysfunction". He added measures needed to be taken to make sure it did not happen again.

Dominique Minière, the director of EDF's nuclear sector, said at a press conference: "For us there was no dysfunction. Once the intruders had entered they were detected and followed and once it was seen that they were peaceful it was decided to intervene without force."

All nine activists were arrested and Minière added that the campaigners had at no point entered the most-secure area of the site, the nuclear buildings themselves.

Last month the opposition Parti Socialiste and the EELV green parties signed a pact for the 2012 presidential election including the call for 24 nuclear power stations to be closed down.