WORSENING working conditions, inadequate pay rises, pressure to work faster and safety concerns — these are the familiar grievances of a disaffected workforce. When such complaints arise in France's most sensitive industry – nuclear power – alarm bells start ringing. Cyril Bouche and his colleagues at the Tricastin nuclear plant in the rolling hills of the Drome region say the state-owned utility EDF, which runs France's 58 nuclear reactors and has been expanding into the United States and Britain, is not only cutting costs, but also cutting corners. The 39-year old, who works for one of EDF's many subcontracting firms, says working conditions at the plant – hit by a series of incidents that shook public trust in 2008 – have deteriorated over the past five to 10 years. “Today France is selling reactors abroad but it should first put its own house in order,” said Bouche, the only one of 10 workers interviewed by Reuters who was prepared to be identified. The French government has put forward state ownership of its nuclear sector as a guarantee of its safety, but former monopoly EDF subcontracts 80 percent of the maintenance at its nuclear reactors to firms such as Vinci, Areva, GDF Suez or Bouygues. EDF denies the suggestion that subcontracting implies it is skimping, pointing to plans to more than double investments to 8 billion euros in 2009 from 2005 levels to build and modernize nuclear, fuel-fired power plants and hydraulic plants. “We subcontract because we have very specialized activities. When we change the reactor's fuel, this is a very sophisticated activity,” said Philippe Gaestel, head of industrial strategy at EDF. “We prefer to use subcontractors rather than do it ourselves. This means we have specialists and competencies that we couldn't have internally.” But independent experts including Yves Marignac, executive director of the information agency Wise-Paris, say safety margins in French nuclear power plants are shrinking as plants age, economic pressure mounts and trained staff retire. “Even if it remains very unlikely, the probability of a serious nuclear incident is rising because of the way things are evolving, and this in itself is very worrying,” he told Reuters by telephone. France's nuclear safety record worsened in 2008. Last year there was an increase of nearly one-third in nuclear incidents reported by the French nuclear safety watchdog at level one of the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), which runs from 0 to 7. The French nuclear safety board ASN said there had been 72 incidents at level one in 2008, up from 56 in 2007. Nuclear is the main industrial sector of the Drome region famous for the nougat delicacy made in the city of Montelimar. For Bouche and others, good pay was the lure to an industry that requires working long hours in dark and confined spaces with the constant risk of exposure to radiation. A former car mechanic on the minimum wage, Bouche said he doubled his salary when he entered the nuclear sector 18 years ago but that pay had not increased with inflation. France generates 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power and is keen to export its expertise, which stretches back three decades, as other countries turn to nuclear to cut carbon emissions and boost their energy independence. It opted for nuclear after the 1973 oil crisis pushed oil to then-record levels, although the choice was political: the costs of nuclear and fossil fuels are not easy to compare. The Tricastin workers say they are worried about mounting numbers of small incidents, and point to a lack of oversight. “In the past we used to work hand-in-hand with EDF on maintenance operations, but little by little EDF has withdrawn to let subcontractors take over,” said one of Bouche's colleagues, speaking on condition of anonymity because he feared he may lose his job. “Now EDF has lost its knowledge,” he said, adding that EDF agents now merely played a monitoring role. Annie Thebaud-Mony, head of research at the French health institute Inserm, said jobs in nuclear power plants were becoming less secure due to privatization and competition. But the company denies it has gradually pulled out from maintenance, saying it chose to subcontract from the outset. “This was the optimal option to have quality work with specialists who operate permanently on our sites,” said EDF's Gaestel. He said the company spent some 1.5 billion euros annually on maintenance, a relatively stable sum for some years.
