Abstract
Never has France’s role in international nuclear politics been greater than since 1974. The period of Giscard’s Presidency not only witnessed the first major successes of the French nuclear industry’s export efforts and the launching of an ambitious domestic electro-nuclear programme, it also showed France’s impressive technological advances in key areas such as fast breeder reactors and commercial spent fuel reprocessing. Moreover, whereas all other Western industrialised nations were severely hit by the nuclear recession of these years, France demonstrated a remarkable ability to insulate herself from both social (i.e., environmental) and economic difficulties associated with the development of a large nuclear programme In fact France during the septennat increased her technological lead while carving out for herself an ever-growing role in the arena of international nuclear politics.
Parts of this chapter have been adapted from sections of an earlier paper which appeared originally in volume 12 of the Arbeitspapiere zur Internationalen Politik, Forschungsinstitut der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik e.V., ©1980 Europa Union Verlag GmbH, Bonn.
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Notes
Bertrand Goldschmidt, Les Rivalités atomiques,1939–66 ( Paris: Fayard, 1967 );
Lawrence Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic (Princeton University Press, 1965);
Pierre Papon, Le Pouvoir et la Science en France ( Paris: Editions du Centurion, 1979 ) pp. 105–27.
Lothar Ruehl, La Politique militaire de la Vème République (Paris: FNSP, 1978) chs XI, XII.
Irvin C. Bupp and Jean-Claude Derian, Light Water: How the Nuclear Dream Dissolved ( New York: Basic Books, 1978 );
Philippe Simonnot, Les Nucléocrates ( Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1978 ).
Syndicat CFDT de l’Energie Atomique, L’Electro-nucléaire en France (Paris: Seuil, 1975) p. 105; Simonnot, op. cit. p. 269.
CEA, L’Industrie Nucléaire Française, June 1977, pp. 42–90; Revue Générale Nucléaire, 1 (1978) pp. 43–5.
Ministère de l’Industrie, The Energy Policy of France (Paris, 1979) – p. 59.
Wilfrid L. Kohl, French Nuclear Diplomacy (Princeton University Press, 1971) pp. 259–62.
In the earlier period France exported a research reactor to Israel (Dimona), but only one graphite-gas reactor in a joint venture with Spain, and one PWR in a joint venture with Belgium. See US General Accounting Office, Overview of Nuclear Export Policies of Major Foreign Supplier Nations (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 21 Oct. 1977). A reprocessing plant was sold to Japan following negotiations in 1966–70.
See M. Lung and M. Coignaud, “L’Usine de Retraitement de Tokai Mura”, Revue Générale Nucléaire, 4 (1978) pp. 314–19.
SIPRI, Safeguards against Nuclear Proliferation ( Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1975 ) pp. 58–65.
Simone Courteix, Exportations nucléaires et non-proliferation ( Paris: Economica, 1978 ) pp. 94–101.
François de Rose, “Puissance nucléaire et responsabilité politique”, Le Figaro, 17 Dec. 1976.
Pierre Lellouche and Richard K. Lester, “The Crisis of Nuclear Energy”, The Washington Quarterly, Summer 1979, pp. 34–48.
See also Bertrand Goldschmidt, “Le Contrôle de l’énergie atomique et la non-proliferation”, Politique Etrangère 1977, p. 413; and Revue Générale Nucléaire 4 (1977) pp. 205, 329.
François de Rose, “La Pierre philosophale”, Le Monde, 13 May 1977; Nucleonics Week, 12 May 1977.
Jean Teillac, in Nucleonics Week 16 Oct. 1980, pp. 9–10.
See further David White, “France’s Nuclear Sales Prospects Brighten”, Financial Times, 12 Nov. 1980.
F. , “La COGEMA: Réalisations et Projets”, Revue Générale Nucléaire, 1 (1978) pp. 43–6; Nuclear News, Nov. 1978.
Günter Hildenbrand, “A German Reaction to US Non-Proliferation Policy”, International Security, 3, 2 (Fall 1978 ).
André Fontaine, “Que faire de l’Allemagne?”, Le Monde, 22 Nov. 1978.
On the background to the latter question see Guy de Jonquières, “French Designs on EURATOM Strain Relations with Bonn”, Financial Times, 3 Aug. 1979.
Bruno Dethomas, “Qui paiera le surcoût du Programme Nucléaire?”, Le Monde, 10 Jan. 1979.
Jean Renon, president of Foratom, in The Times 27 May 1978.
On the search for supplies, see Bertrand Goldschmidt, Le Complexe atomique: histoire politique de l’énergie nucléaire (Paris: Fayard, 1980) pp. 439 ff.
Jean Teillac, of CEA, interview in Nucleonics Week 16 Oct. 1980, pp. 9–10.
Jim Hoagland, “Mitterrand’s Terms for Repairing Plant”, Washington Post article republished in the Manchester Guardian Weekly, 28 June 1981, pp. 15–16.
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© 1983 Robert Boardman and James F. Keeley
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Lellouche, P. (1983). Giscard’s Legacy: French Nuclear Policy and Non-proliferation, 1974–81. In: Boardman, R., Keeley, J.F. (eds) Nuclear Exports and World Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05984-3_3
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