France gets about seventy five percent of its electricity from fifty eight operating nuclear power reactors at nineteen plants There is a serious debate going on in France about its reliance on nuclear power. Its neighbor, Germany, decided to shut down all of its nuclear power reactors after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March of 2011. France is seriously considering substantially reducing the amount of electricity generated by nuclear power. Now French nuclear power has become involved in a national dispute over unpopular labor reforms.
The conservative French government has proposed a series of labor reforms that have caused over a million French citizens to take to the streets in widespread protests. The proposed reforms include making it easier to fire employees, reducing pensions and unemployment compensation, lowering payroll taxes, lowering wages and benefits, and reducing of the power of labor unions. The French government says that these reforms are necessary to combat unemployment and make France more competitive in the global market. Economic data from other nations suggests that the arguments offered by the French government for these reforms are not supported by research.
National strikes in France began a few days ago and one of the first victims was the French refining industry. Sixteen hundred gas stations are out of fuel and six out of eight refineries are blocked. There are already gasoline shortages and rationing. The French government expressed confidence that their strategic fuel reserves would allow them to ride out the interruptions in refinery operation and gasoline distribution. The reserves are sufficient to satisfy the demand for fuel for at least three months.
Some unions accept the reforms but other unions are adamantly opposed. Two of the biggest unions, the CGT and the CFDT are fighting for influence and they have refused to call for strikes. Opponents of the strikes hope that the lack of participation by these two big unions will diminish the impact of the national strikes.
There is a month long international soccer tournament scheduled to begin in France on June 10th. A majority of the French people are afraid that the strikes and protests may disrupt the tournament, especially in view of the tight security that has been planned because of the terrorist attacks in Paris.
A strike has been called for tomorrow at all nineteen of the French nuclear power plants. There are laws about how much impact a strike at nuclear power plants is allowed to have on the supply of electricity. Some experts in the power sector of the French economy say that they do not believe that there will be blackouts because of the strikes. Other analysts say that blackouts are likely despite what the law says. When a nuclear power reactor is shut down, it takes from three to five days to restart it.
Centralized power generation systems such as large nuclear power plants are especially vulnerable to disruptions such as strikes and protests. There is also the possibility that strikes and protests could provide cover for terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants or internal sabotage by disgruntled employees.
Map of French nuclear power plants (operating plants in blue):
