Day 4/ Journée 4

Since I lived in France during a year of high school and speak French I decided a layover in Paris on my way to Germany would be a good idea. Having a couple of days to get over jet lag and prepare for research in a country where I can actually communicate and function easily was ideal.

The more I read the book, The Radiance Of France by Gabrielle Hecht the more I become interested in the French view of nuclear power. France uses nuclear power more than any other country. They are one of only 3 countries (France, Belgium and Slovakia) that rely on nuclear power for their primary source of energy. To a large degree it has to do with the French definition of the public service: “Everyone’s right to equal access to a regular, quality service, supplied at the best price.” Like education and healthcare, energy is one of those very basic services that citizens need. (I would note that the cost of nuclear energy is going up, not down however.)

Without going to far into the topic of nuclear weapons, which is not what my project is about, I do have to point out that nuclear weapons and nuclear energy are not two exclusive topics. This should be important in noting with the current climate, fear and international investigations of nuclear weapons. Support of nuclear power in the 1950’s was in major part by a technopolitical regime.  As mentioned in Hecht’s book, “Technical and the political are carefully defended and distinguished, but are at the same time made interdependent. The nuclear power plant, designed by industrialists, engineers and scientists, is a hybrid sociotechnical agencement, both  a technical device (capable of producing plutonium and electricity) and a political contrivance (it paves the way to the atomic bomb).”

With 58 nuclear power plants in a country that’s smaller than Texas, I knew one wouldn’t be too far. I chose Nogent Sur-Seine Nuclear Power Plant because of the recent controversy. In December 2011, after the Fukushima disaster, 9 Greenpeace activists broke into the power plant and climbed onto one of the towers holding a banner that stated, “Safe nuclear (energy) doesn’t exist.” Greenpeace’s mission was to show how easy it was for someone to break in and get to the heart of the nuclear reactor.

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