The Flamanville site, in the Manche department, on January 18, 2022 (AFP / Sameer Al-DOUMY)
“We are not going to spit in the soup”: in Flamanville (Manche) the 11 years of cumulative delay of the EPR construction site are considered by many inhabitants as a “godsend” for employment, but some, under the guise of anonymity, are indignant at the cost of this new generation reactor.
“For us, it’s still very good news. (The site) brings us people”, explains Patricia Typhagne, 52, manager of a hairdressing salon which employs two other people in this coastal village of 1,800 inhabitants. with pretty granite houses.
“Clearly, it’s rather good news, commercially. It’s a boon to be able to work here, even more so if the site is running late”, confirms Cyril Laniepce, 33, manager of the hotel-restaurant de la Falaise , very close to the construction site where 2,800 people work.
“All the merchants are working very, very well,” adds the owner of this establishment facing the sea.
Nestled at the foot of a cliff, the Flamanville nuclear power plant, which has two reactors in service and one under construction, is not visible from the village. Only the number of pylons and very high voltage cables suggests its presence.
The port of Flamanville, in the English Channel on January 18, 2022 (AFP / Sameer Al-DOUMY)
“It is sure that it is employment and the inhabitants have tenants out of season. We are relentless on this EPR but for cheap electricity, I find that it is starting to be expensive”, ironically Léon Boni, 47, a show technician whose second home displays a “nuclear no thank you” flag, and the vehicle a “stop EPR” sticker, rare slogans in this end of the world where nuclear power is an economic pillar with also the La Hague reprocessing plant, 25 km from Flamanville, and the Cherbourg nuclear submarine plant, the same distance.
EDF announced on January 12 yet another delay on the construction site of the Flamanville reactor launched at the end of 2007, for commissioning in 2012. Fuel loading is now announced for the second quarter of 2023.
– “The shame of Europe” –
From the cracks in the concrete in 2008 to the welds currently being redone, to the anomalies on the tank, the site continues to accumulate technical problems and the cost has risen to 12.7 billion euros. euros according to EDF’s estimate on 12 January. In 2006, this very powerful 1,650 MW reactor was announced at 3.3 billion euros.
The Flamanville site, in the Manche department, on January 18, 2022 (AFP / Sameer Al-DOUMY)
Doesn’t this outbreak worry the people of Flamanville? “We don’t hear regarding it in my store,” says Ms. Typhagne.
“A delay like that, you shouldn’t complain. Here we don’t have the right. When we are 300 km away, we can perhaps think that this is what makes the electricity bill go up, but here it offers us an incredible comfort of life”, explains the restaurateur, highlighting the numerous sports and cultural infrastructures for a rural area.
A little further, on condition of anonymity, the enthusiasm is less. “In a selfish way, I would say to you that me it benefits me well in itself because I work in the EPR. But in a really responsible way, I would say that it is a scourge. The money that we lose on the ‘EPR is absolutely incredible,’ confides a young man in his twenties before taking his bus.
“It’s money that might be spent elsewhere,” adds a childminder in front of the school. “It’s good for jobs, but companies that do their job badly, it’s unacceptable,” adds a school employee in her sixties.
For Armando, a Portuguese piping supervisor in his fifties living at the Flamanville campsite for the time of a mission to The Hague, this EPR, “is the shame of Europe”.
“We’re not going to spit in the soup but a while ago, we have to say stop. If we had put so much money into renewable energies, we wouldn’t be lagging behind certain European countries”, concludes a retiree from the Cherbourg nuclear submarine factory which hikes on the green heights of Flamanville overlooking the sea.
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