Greenpeace raises alarm over Flamanville nuclear plant document dump
Greenpeace France says it has received thousands of pages of detailed plans of the site, the location of security cameras and descriptions of electronic surveillance, questioning whether the documents are circulating in public.
General view of Belleville-sur-Loire's nuclear plant, across the Loire river in central France, where Greenpeace activists have climbed the cooling towers on March 27, 2007.
Greenpeace France has said that it has been given documents detailing the security systems of the EPR nuclear reactor under construction in Flamanville.
It said on Monday it had been given the documents, without asking for them, from a person who had no professional links with the nuclear industry.
France has raised concerns about the protection of confidential information at nuclear utility EDF (Electricite de France) and its subcontractors.
Greenpeace said in a statement it had access to several thousand pages of detailed plans of the Flamanville site, the location of security cameras and descriptions of electronic surveillance systems.
⚠️[THREAD #EPRleaks 1/11] Comment des milliers de pages de données sensibles sur la sécurité du site nucléaire EPR de Flamanville ont fuité ? ☢️Nos explications sur ce scandale [à dérouler] ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/bCoiRNG7yV
— Greenpeace France (@greenpeacefr) December 6, 2020
'Possibility of intrusion, sabotage or theft'
"The way we have received these documents proves that detailed information about a nuclear site circulates among the public," Greenpeace chief Jean-Francois Julliard said.
"In different circumstances, they could have been sold or given to a violent group ... which raises the possibility of intrusion, sabotage or theft of radioactive materials."
EDF said in a statement it did not know which documents Greenpeace had been given and could not comment on how confidential they are.
It added that the plan of the area and the location of security cameras is not classified information as the cameras are visible to any visitor of the site.
It said that EDF staff and contractors only have access to classified information to the extent that this is required for their job.
READ MORE: 'No leak' after explosion at French nuclear plant
Environmentalist group Greenpeace activists are suspended next to their slogan protest on one of the cooling towers of the nuclear plant of Belleville-sur-Loire in central France on March 27, 2007. A dozen activists entered the plant to protest plans to build the next generation of nuclear reactors known as EPR. The first EPR is being built in Flamanville and was to be operational by 2012.
A decade behind schedule
State-controlled utility EDF, which operates France’s 57 nuclear reactors, had previously said that the pandemic had slowed construction work at the reactor in the north of France, but it did not say if it would lead to further delays.
EDF has been building the first EPR reactor at Flamanville along the Atlantic coast of northwest France – originally set to go online in 2012 – but the project has been plagued by technical problems and budget overruns.
The project is running more than a decade behind schedule and it is now expected to start around 2023 after the regulator demanded EDF repair defective welds.
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