Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
pages 268-269
All of this has lead to my telling you very briefly about
the nuclear problem on the whole in France, and I
wish to pose a question which I feel you may find
interesting: How can a country with the highest
percentage of nuclear energy in the world -- 80
percent of its energy is supplied by nuclear power
plants -- succeed in pursuing its program when it is
said that its population is, for the most part, highly
suspicious of nuclear energy and that this
suspicion turns into absolute rejection when it
comes to talking about living next to a nuclear
waste storage area?
The Cogema manages that with publicity. This
Commission has nothing to sell, but pays 40
million francs, this means eight million dollars,
for a publicity-campaign. And the EdF, the
Electricity of France, pays every year ten times
more for its publicity than the Ministry of
Industry does for renewable energy sources. And
we still have not mentioned all those secret budgets
for the reporters, functionaries and politicians. . . .
We could talk here about extortion. If we
had to believe our politicians and the partners of
the branch, atomic energy is in the worst case a
burden that we do depend on. Our energetic
independence, our power in the world, our
national security depend on the complete use of
our nuclear resources. So, those people in France
who are against an atomic plant or atomic waste
are accused of being betrayers of the national
community.
There still would be so much to say, but
let me express here our fraternity to those peoples
of the planet that are under the yoke of this
terrible French nuclear power. I would particularly
like to express my solidarity to our struggling
friends in the South Pacific. In my opinion, we
Limousins have much in common with them. We
are being treated with the same arrogance and
disdain, we hear the same lies, the same
dissimulations, and more, we have to bear the
shame.
Martine Deguillaume
Martine Deguillaume, France. Medical doctor, member
of CRII-Rad (Commission de Recherche et d'Information
Indépendante sur la Radioactivité).
(This speech was held originally in French)
Hello! I'm here to represent the French
opposition to uranium mines and I'll try my best
to explain to you the situation in France.
The French still have no consistent way of
handling the radioactive waste that remains from
the treatment of uranium-pitchblende. For 40
years, nobody has thought about the massive
storage of radioactive parts in the ancient mines
or quarries exploited by the French. So, people
living in the small region of Limousin in the heart
of France, where I am from, were completely
petrified two years ago when they heard from our
association that they were sleeping on more than
8,000 Curies of radium-226 due to the exploitation
of uranium. The Cogema, the Committee for
Atomic Energy and the political authorities
declare that nowadays the situation is perfectly
under control. But what will happen tomorrow?
We know that the radium has a period of 1,600
years; who is going to watch over it, to control it
and who is going to pay for it? There is no answer
to that.
In France, both legal and administrative rules are
very complex, and this does not help the damaged
population in any way. It's a fact that it is the
exploitants that fix the rules of the game. For
instance, in 40 years, there has been only one
milk analysis on the French miners' sites. And as
those responsible for this mess may control it by
themselves, they also have the right to transgress
those laws they had once established. So, not
long ago, the highest authority in French
administrative jurisprudence, the Privy Council,
had been appealed to by three ministers who
admitted their incompetence referring to the legal
status of the radium parts in the mines. As we are
neither experts in jurisprudence nor in elementary
physics, the Privy Council stated that Cogema
was right, but we heard later on that this brilliant
little surrealistic master-piece text about the legal
status of radium had been written by two experts
of the Commission of Atomic Energy.
Nevertheless, the associations working in France still
can do something. For the first time in 40 years of
uranium exploitation, the mining sites will be
independently inspected by the only really independent
laboratory. Actually, two mining sites are being
inspected in France. But there is a very difficult
problem concerning all mining sites of the
world: Exploitants are using them to store radioactive
or chemical waste that nobody wants. Thus, in
our region Cogema has buried hundreds
of thousands of barrels, and goes on with yellow
cakes that have nothing to do with the extraction
of uranium, and thousands of other radioactive
materials, and who cares anyway at the point
they are! So, we decided to inform the press, and
the announcement about Cogema's projects in
this sector was made last Monday. In the
Limousin, Cogema wants to bury different sorts of
radioactive waste being refused everywhere else
in France and is producing a scandal all over the
country. And last Wednesday, after our
association had officially announced that the
Limousin had to become the French radioactive
waste-bin, Cogema just confirmed that
information by giving more details about it and
declaring with the following words, "that the rules
in efficacy will strictly be observed". Well, I can
tell you that before becoming radioactive, we
might die of laughing too much because there is
no rule in efficacy in France at this time. That
makes it easy for the Cogema to respect
them. There is no fundamental security
rule, not even a treatment technique for
this waste and no arrangement for it.
Apart from these details, Cogema is, of
course, going to strictly observe the rules. All of
this has lead to my telling you very briefly about
the nuclear problem on the whole in France, and I
wish to pose a question which I feel you may find
interesting: How can a country with the highest
percentage of nuclear energy in the world -- 80
percent of its energy is supplied by nuclear power
plants -- succeed in pursuing its program when it is
said that its population is, for the most part, highly
suspicious of nuclear energy and that this
suspicion turns into absolute rejection when it
comes to talking about living next to a nuclear
waste storage area?
The Cogema manages that with publicity. This
Commission has nothing to sell, but pays 40
million francs, this means eight million dollars,
for a publicity-campaign. And the EdF, the
Electricity of France, pays every year ten times
more for its publicity than the Ministry of
Industry does for renewable energy sources. And
we still have not mentioned all those secret budgets
for the reporters, functionaries and politicians.
We also have to underline the lack of
medical control and investigations in France. On
this point, the French Scientific Community
shows no interest but a perfect submission. There
is not one report on the medical effects of weak
doses in France. Roger
just told you before about the studies concerning the miners.
We could talk here about extortion. If we
had to believe our politicians and the partners of
the branch, atomic energy is in the worst case a
burden that we do depend on. Our energetic
independence, our power in the world, our
national security depend on the complete use of
our nuclear resources. So, those people in France
who are against an atomic plant or atomic waste
are accused of being betrayers of the national
community.
There still would be so much to say, but
let me express here our fraternity to those peoples
of the planet that are under the yoke of this
terrible French nuclear power. I would particularly
like to express my solidarity to our struggling
friends in the South Pacific. In my opinion, we
Limousins have much in common with them. We
are being treated with the same arrogance and
disdain, we hear the same lies, the same
dissimulations, and more, we have to bear the
shame.
In France, like anywhere else, there are
two kinds of citizens: those who are for and
those who are against atomic energy. But fortunately,
big fights as those of Plogoff and Cresse Malville
have not been forgotten. And we have the only
check-laboratory in the world that is completely
independent of the State and public control. It is
called the CRII-Rad (Commission for
Independant Research and Information on
Radioactivity). Everybody here can ask for the
address, and this laboratory is at the disposition
of any of your groups or any suspecting citizen
who might want a radioactivity-check on spots
presumed to be dangerous.
Before finishing, I would briefly like to
remember to our friends and to our European
neighbours that we can't cry "victory!" in this
anti-atomic-energy-fight after blocking up an
atomic waste storage point or after refusing the
start of a nuclear program. We should be careful
and each time ask ourselves where the energy in
Europe comes from, and, more, if we are not
buying energy from the same French country, after
having struggled so much to keep our own place
safe from it. The same goes for the radioactive
atomic waste and its dispatching, we also have to
ask ourselves: Where does the waste we don't
want go? Does France manage with it?
I would like to conclude now by saying
that in my opinion, we'll never be able to find a
proper solution for anyone if we don't ask
ourselves the following question: Is this atomic
bullshit (excuse me for saying that) here to help
humanity or to help economy and goods trade?
Thank you.