No Nukes: a tale of two countries.

However close France and Germany may be geographically, their approaches to nuclear power are worlds apart. With 58 reactors, the hexagone is Europe’s nuclear number one. Germany on the other hand occupies a modest fourth place with only 17. But it is about to become Europe’s champion in nuclear phasing out.

Last Saturday, 160 thousand demonstrators in 20-odd cities demanded ‘Atomkraft: Schluss!’, an immediate nuclear shutdown. Two days later, chancellor Merkel revealed her government’s  timetable: eight very old and unsafe nuclear reactors will be turned off immediately, and the last plant will be put to sleep in 2022.

Mutter Teresa

Surely the plan doesn’t satisfy all. ‘Merkel stilisiert sich als “Mutter Teresa der Energiewende”‘, commented Friends of the Earth Germany. And Die Grünen who, back in 2001 when they were part of a  Read-Green government, had negotiated a  deadline of one to two years earlier, said that a shutdown in 2017 ‘is feasible without risks’.

But the decision has been taken by a right-wing government. And that is a historic first. Which contrasts sharply with France’s president Sarkozy’s attitude; the hyper-président continues selling nuclear technology to the world as if Fukushima never were. Merkels position  goes way beyond that of France’s Parti Socialiste. Jérôme Cahuzac, chair of the finance committee in the Assemblée Nationale, told Le Figaro on Monday that his country ‘is a lot more dependant of nuclear energy than Germany’. And François Hollande, one of the party’s possible presidential candidates,  today mentioned of  ‘a reduction of 25% by 2025’.

Duflot (l), Joly (r)

Train raté

In short, Europe Écologie-Les Verts face a lonely battle in the run-up to the presidential and government elections in 2012. Party secretary Cécile Duflot wants to make the phasing out a condition for the party’s participation in a left wing government. But Eva Joly, one of the party’s candidates to the presidential candidacy, told Le Figaro on Monday ‘Après avoir raté le train des énergies renouvelables et les centaines de milliers d’emplois qu’elles créent, la France rate le train du démantèlement dont l’Allemagne va devenir experte’.

Pile atomique

Why this ocean of difference? For the answer one has to go back to just after World War II. Whereas Germany, defeated, had to abstain from any form of military effort, France’s leader De Gaulle decided that his country should invest in nuclear armament. A first ‘pile atomique’ was put into service in 1948.

Only after the oil crisis in the early 70’s the use as source of energy emerged. But the time and funds invested during all those years, gave France an advantage over its eastern neighbour that lasts till today:  approximately 75 % of its electricity supply comes from nuclear sources, whereas German, now one of Europe’s leaders in solar and wind energy, only needs 28 %.