9.1 France as a Forerunner in High-Level Radioactive Waste Management

Together with Finland and Sweden, France is a forerunner in the development of high-level nuclear waste (HLW) management solutions. A deep geological repository for high- and medium-level long-lived waste is being planned for Bure, a very small community in a sparsely populated area in the East of France, with expected operation to start in 2040–2050. The project, led by the national radioactive waste management agency, Andra, and financed via taxes levied on the waste producers, has a long and conflict-ridden history of deep mistrust between proponents and opponents of the project, and faces resistance from an active minority, despite the extensive participatory procedures, especially at the national level (Barthe, 2006; Blowers, 2016; Lehtonen, 2019). In 1998, the government announced reversible deep geological disposal (DGD) as its preferred option—a choice consolidated as the reference option for HLW management in a landmark 2006 waste law, following a public consultation organised by the National Commission on Public Debate (CNDP) in 2005–2006. In 2010, the government approved Andra’s plan to site in Bure a deep geological repository, Cigéo,Footnote 1 designed to accommodate all high-level and long-lived intermediate-level radioactive waste (ILW) generated by France’s operating nuclear fleet throughout its entire lifetime. The mandatory public consultation on Cigéo, in 2013, had to be transformed to an on-line expert debate because of obstruction by local opponents. A law adopted in 2016 specified the criteria of reversibility. Andra submitted its application for a “declaration of public utility” (DUP; demande de déclaration d’utilité publique) in August 2020, and subjected the proposal to a public inquiry in September 2021. Andra hopes to launch the project in 2025 with successive pilot phases, allowing the repository to become fully operational in 2040–2050. Although supported by most parliamentarians, departmental authorities, business organisations, trades unions, and mayors in the region, the project continues to generate controversy and has led to clashes between opponents and the police.

Despite the resistance and controversies, the project has advanced steadily, if somewhat slower than planned. The “participatory turn” inaugurated in 1990 opened up the highly technical planning approach to a broader range of stakeholders, perspectives, and management options. This opening up was triggered largely by the need to manage the considerable public mistrust towards the promoters of the repository project and the nuclear sector in general. Three historically shaped features underpinned the mistrust: the miserably failed communication concerning the Chernobyl fallout in France, the highly technical and non-participatory way in which Andra conducted test drillings in candidate municipalities in the late 1980s, and the longstanding secretive policymaking in the French nuclear sector, led by a small yet powerful group of technocrats, entailing close integration between the scientific and politico-administrative domains of governance.

A number of institutions and practices have been established to manage the pervasive mistrustful relationships between various actors in French HLW governance, to harness mistrust to productive purposes, and to thereby facilitate the articulation across governance domains. This has included the establishment of pluralist multi-stakeholder bodies and institutions, the adoption of the concept of reversibility as the cornerstone of HLW management, and, most recently, experimentation with processes of co-creation of knowledge between institutional and citizen experts. These efforts, in turn, build on the strong tradition of nuclear-sector counter-expertise, developed since the mid-1970s and institutionalised following the Chernobyl disaster. Civic vigilance represented by counter-expertise has forced actors in the political and administrative sphere, as well as industry players, to seek new ways of integrating the civil society and social science expertise into HLW governance.

This chapter analyses these measures and practices adopted in French HLW governance to improve the articulation between the different governance domains, and their impacts on the multiple trust and mistrust relations. In particular, the integration of the societal domain in HLW governance remains controversial and contested, and measures of trust-building have produced a range of partly unanticipated outcomes. Greater transparency and mechanisms of “invited” participation have also generated new forms of mistrust, both between and within the governance domains. For example, sections of the critical civil society and social science community see this engagement as merely another measure employed by the technocracy to maintain control, whereas some voices from the “nuclear community” consider that the engagement with civil society has gone so far as to undermine the integrity and objectivity of science. The French example calls for attention to the complex and multidimensional nature of trust and mistrust, the possibilities and limitations of mistrust in fostering the social robustness of policies and decisions, and the importance of the historical nuclear-sector legacies in shaping the articulation between the domains of HLW governance.

9.2 The Rocky Road Towards Becoming a Forerunner

9.2.1 The Roots of Mistrust: Chernobyl, a Technical Approach to Siting, and the Nucleocracy

The beginning of the institutionalisation of French HLW governance can be traced back to 1979, when the government set up the National Radioactive Waste Management Agency (Andra) to implement geological disposal of HLW and to manage low- and intermediate waste storage. Andra was established as an agency of the Commissariat of Atomic Energy (CEA), at the time still the leader of French nuclear technology development, R&D, and regulation. As such, it closely integrated the politico-administrative and scientific-technological spheres of governance, to the exclusion of the societal domain. HLW management in France is closely conditioned by choices regarding the entire fuel cycle, in particular that of reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. The La Hague reprocessing site is a key venue for HLW management as the entry into operation of the Cigéo repository is still far off. Three sites for above-ground storage of low-and-intermediate level waste are operational, in the departments of La Manche and l’Aube.

Discontent and mistrust emerged quickly in reaction to the technical and non-participatory way in which Andra conducted its site investigations in 1987–1990. This generated vehement local opposition, with citizens asking why their community should be designated as “France’s nuclear wastebasket” (Barthe et al., 2010), and contributed to the quick deterioration of the hitherto relatively high trust in state institutions and engineering elites. The second source of mistrust was the so-called “Chernobyl cloud affair”, i.e., the discovery that the authorities had downplayed the true extent of the Chernobyl fallout in 1986 (Kalmbach, 2015; Ambroise-Rendu, 2018; Lehtonen, 2019, pp. 63–75). The public turned sceptical about the ability and willingness of the authorities to manage and communicate on nuclear safety, whereas the media became increasingly critical, and wary of being seen as the mouthpiece of the government and authorities (Ambroise-Rendu, 2018).

The third reason for mistrust had more profound roots in the special place that the nuclear sector has enjoyed within French society since the 1950s. Nuclear energy in France was originally developed to support the atomic weapons industry, and decision-making was secretive, overwhelmingly in the hands of a small number of technocrats, often described as a “nucleocracy”—experts, civil servants and politicians trained in the country’s prestigious polytechnics (e.g., Barthe, 2006; Hecht, 2009; Lepage, 2014). However, especially until the Chernobyl accident, the technocracy was not only despised, as the nuclear sector was also seen as a source of pride, export revenue, and a vector of post-War modernization (Hecht, 2009). The civilian nuclear sector took off properly in 1974, with the launching of a massive programme of construction of American pressurised-water reactors (PWRs). There has been significant public scepticism towards nuclear energy in France throughout its history, but politically, nuclear energy enjoyed cross-party support until the mid-1990s, when the uncompromisingly anti-nuclear Green Party became a major player (Brouard & Guineaudeau, 2015).

Today, 56 reactors, operated by the 96% state-owned EDF (Electricité de France)Footnote 2, satisfy about 70% of France’s electricity demand. The nuclear sector provides an estimated 220,000 jobs in the country (Vie publique, 2022). France holds competence over the entire fuel cycle through the CEA, and above all the industry giants EDF, Orano (until late 2017, Areva)Footnote 3 and Framatome. The future of the French nuclear sector has during the recent decade become increasingly uncertain. In the aftermath of the Fukushima accident in March 2011, for the first time in French history even some leading politicians evoked the possibility of a nuclear phase-out. Successive governments have sought to ensure the success of the country’s nuclear technology exports, which have, however, faced several setbacks over the past fifteen years, most notably in the Asian and American markets. President François Hollande’s government made a commitment in 2012 to reduce the share of nuclear electricity from the then 75% to 50% by 2025, but in 2018, Hollande’s successor, Emmanuel Macron, postponed the target to 2035. Even this target has since been questioned, as shown by Macron’s declaration in 2021 foreseeing the construction of six new European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) in France, and €1 billion investment in nuclear, with the development of Small Modular Reactors as a priority (Elysée, 2021; Dupont-Calbo, 2021). All this despite the formidable delays, budget overruns, and technical problems on the only current new-build site, Flamanville, where the EDF has been constructing an EPR since 2007. In January 2022, the fuel loading for the reactor was expected to start in 2023, eleven years behind the initial schedule (World Nuclear News, 2022). Significant uncertainties therefore surround the future of the French nuclear sector, and hence also the amount and type of waste that would ultimately be disposed of in Cigéo.

9.2.2 Re-Establishing Trust, Reproducing Mistrust

To re-establish trust and unblock the HLW management stalemate, the government declared a moratorium on site investigations in 1990, and entrusted a parliamentary commission with the task of consulting the actors concerned. The research was reinitiated in 1991 but included three different RWM options, and opened the discussion to a wide range of actors (Barthe, 2006). The landmark Waste Act 1991, the so-called Bataille Law, named after the parliamentarian leading of the preparation of the Waste Act,Footnote 4 introduced the ideas of reversible geological disposal and community benefit schemes, and led to the establishment of multi-stakeholder commissions, external evaluating bodies, and local information and liaison committees (CLIS). These added further complexity to the multilevel governance of the project.

Towards the late 1990s, local disputes erupted again, in the context of declining public trust in the governance of risk, and following the 1998 government decision to site the underground research laboratory in Bure. The option of burying the waste in granitic formations in the department of Vienne was studied in the 1980s and 1990s, but was abandoned in favour of clay host rock in Bure, because of significant uncertainties concerning the capacity of the Vienne granite to isolate the waste (Patinaux, 2019). Largely because of local opposition, site search was discontinued in the other candidate communities. This quickly turned Bure into the de facto only candidate for hosting a repository (Blowers, 2016). The fifteen-year period of ‘opening up’ inaugurated in 1991 culminated in a mandatory public debate, organised in 2005–2006 by the National Commission on Public Debate (CNDP), in parallel with debates on a new EPR reactor and the associated high-voltage transmission line project. The waste debate informed the parliamentary discussion leading to the approval of the so-called Planning Act of 2006. The Act instructed Andra to plan a geological repository and apply for a construction licence by 2015. Even many observers critical towards the repository project acknowledged the democratic quality of the CNDP debate—especially its ability to consolidate the legitimacy of CNDP (Bertrand, et al., 2005; Global Chance, 2006, p. 64). However, trust in HLW management institutions was undermined by the exclusion of long-term near-surface storage from the parliamentary preparation of the Planning Act. This option had emerged in the CNDP debate through the demands of a wide range of mainly civil society participants, who argued that keeping the options open would be the only rational solution, given that technological development would most likely bring better solutions, which might even allow turning the waste into a useful resource. A new Act on nuclear transparency and securityFootnote 5 adopted in parallel in 2006 completed the decades-long gradual process of separation between the promotional and regulatory functions in the French nuclear governance system, by granting the safety authority ASN full independence in relation to both the government and industry.

9.2.3 Towards Implementation: The Cigéo Facility

In March 2010, the government approved Andra’s proposal for the creation of the Cigéo repository, after it had been examined by ASN, the National Assessment Board (CNE), and international experts. The HLW would be vitrified, packaged in steel containers, and then placed in tunnels at a depth of about 500 m in a 160-million-year-old Callovo-Oxfordian clay formation (Andra, 2012, p. 4). Cementation or asphalting will be applied to the ILW stored in Cigéo. The repository would be constructed and closed down in a stepwise manner. The project is financed via charges levied on the waste producers: EDF, Orano (until late 2017, Areva), and the national nuclear R&D agency, CEA.Footnote 6

The facility is expected to host about 10,000 m3 of HLW (about 60,000 waste packages) and 75,000 m3 of ILW (about 170,000 packages), yet the actual quantity will depend on definitions of waste and on the future of the country’s nuclear policy, not least the decisions on whether to continue reprocessing of spent fuel (PNGMDR, 2019, p. 56). Reprocessing has been a cornerstone of France’s nuclear policy that since the 1960s has aimed towards a “closed fuel cycleˮ. The 2006 Waste ActFootnote 7 defines “the reduction of the quantity and toxicity of radioactive waste especially via reprocessing” as the first of the three key orientations for the National Management Plan for Radioactive Materials and Waste (PNGMDR 2019). Given the ultimate objective of using the reprocessed spent fuel in fast breeder reactors, spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is thus not considered as radioactive waste in France. However, like in most other countries, the fast breeder projects have failed to deliver on their promise, and have faced repeated setbacks since the 1970s. The industrial prototype reactor Superphénix was shut down in 1998, after years of difficult operation, while the Astrid fast reactor project was suspended in 2019 (e.g., Jobert & Le Renard, 2014; Joly & Le Renard, 2021). Moreover, only about 20 of the country’s operating reactors can use the mixed oxide (MOX) fuel derived from reprocessing. Given the lack of technological capacity in France to reutilise most of the spent fuel, the safety authority ASN recently called for a reconsideration of the waste classification, with a view to qualifying the uranium, plutonium, and the residues from the MOX fuel as ultimate waste (ASN, 2020).Footnote 8 The latest version of PNGMDR, adopted in 2020, outlined three scenarios for HLW management, based on diverging assumptions concerning the country’s future nuclear policy: 1) multiple rounds of waste reprocessing made possible by the deployment of fast breeder Gen IV reactors, 2) continuation of the current policy of one round of reprocessing, and 3) abandonment of reprocessing (PNGMDR, 2019).

After two decades of relative calm, in the context of the ‘opening up’ of the HLW policy, conflict erupted again in May 2013, when CNDP launched the mandatory public consultation on the siting of the project in Bure. The consultation turned into a farce, following persistent obstruction by opponents (Blanck, 2017). The planned public hearings were cancelled and replaced by on-line expert debates. A relatively successful citizens’ consensus conference was organised in early 2014 to “save the face” of the CNDP. The consensus conference suggested that the Cigéo project start with an industrial pilot phase of a minimum of five years, a solution supported by the safety authority’s technical support organisation, IRSN (Denoun, 2015). On 25 July 2016, Parliament adopted a law specifying the details of the project, including those relating to safety during operation and after the closure of the repository, as well as the technical criteria for retrievability (see Sect. 9.2.4). Andra submitted its application for a “declaration of public utility” (DUP) in August 2020, and, after a statement from the Environmental Authority, in September 2021 a six-week on-line public inquiry on the project was opened. In December 2021, the public inquiry commission issued a favourable statement on the DUP application.

The government granted Cigéo a DUP, via a decree issued by the Prime Minister, in July 2022.Footnote 9 Andra submitted its construction licence application (“autorisation de création”) on 16 January 2023, expectingFootnote 10 that a government decree will approve the application in 2025, at the earliest (MTE, n.d.). Should this timetable hold, the project would start with a ten-year pilot phase, with waste packages which do not contain radioactive material. In 2035–2040, provided that ASN gives its approval, the pilot phase would continue with actual radioactive waste packages. A law defining the conditions for the operation of the repository would allow the repository to become fully operational, in 2040–2050.

9.2.4 Reversible Geological Disposal: A Key Concept for Alleviating and Managing Mistrust

A key concept designed to alleviate public mistrust has been reversible geological disposal—the explicit objective of the French HLW management policy since the late 1990s. Until the late 1980s, the French nuclear elite considered irreversible deep geological disposal as the best and, de facto, the only option for HLW management (Barthe, 2006, pp. 55–57). Irreversibility, portrayed as the impossibility to recover the waste packages, was a central objection of environmental NGOs and local politicians opposed to geological disposal (Cézanne-Bert & Chateauraynaud, 2009, pp. 61–63). Their preferred alternative was temporary near-surface storage at the nuclear sites. In January 1990, a socialist parliamentarian demanded that the reversibility of the geological disposal project be ensured (ibid.).

The National Waste Act in 1991 evoked the notion of “reversible or irreversible geological disposal” but did not clearly define reversibility. In 1998, the government declared reversibility to be an essential requirement and a condition for public acceptance for the radioactive waste management solution (Hoorelbeke 2008, pp. 9–10; Barthe, 2009; Lehtonen, 2010). The Planning Act of 2006 established reversible geological disposal as the reference option and defined reversibility as an umbrella term that covers both the technical and political dimensions of the concept: the ability to retrieve the waste, and the possibility to change and reconsider decisions. Reversibility was again debated in the context of the problematic 2013 CNDP debate on the Cigéo project. Andra’s proposal for the practical application of reversibility was debated in Parliament and integrated in July 2016 in the law on reversibility of geological disposal.Footnote 11 The law defines reversibility as a concept that allows future generations to choose between either continuing the construction and operation of disposal through successive phases, or to re-examine the earlier choices and modify the management solutions accordingly.Footnote 12 In addition to reversibility, even after its closure, following some 150 years of operation, the repository and its environment are to remain under monitoring for several centuries.

9.3 Managing Mistrust in Practice: Institutions and Mechanisms for Articulating Between Domains

Since the landmark Waste Act from 1991, numerous legislative acts and milestones have marked the evolution of French HLW governance, and an elaborate legal framework has been set up, consisting of successive key decision points. The 1991 and 2006 laws laid down the key principles of the policy,Footnote 13 which is governed by the PNGMDR, a plan revised every three years, informed by the national waste inventory produced by Andra, and ratified by Parliament. The energy ministry and ASN draft the plan, with advice from a multi-stakeholder committee. In 2019–2020, the preparation of the plan was for the first time informed by a public debate organised by CNDP (PNGMDR, 2019).

The politico-administrative system relating to radioactive waste management in France is highly complex, with multiple levels and parallel tracks of state and regional administration. Multiple stakeholders are involved in mutual control and surveillance at state, departmental and local level, across the governance domains. However, the system remains highly centralised: the implementation is delegated to a state agency, Andra, and the state, represented also at the regional and departmental levels by its own “deconcentrated” administrations, holds the ultimate decision-making power. Key local actors include the more than 300 small communes in the planned repository area, and the departmental authorities of the two departments, Meuse and Haute-Marne, which share the underground laboratory and the planned Cigéo facility. The local municipalities have no veto over the siting decision.

National-level policy leadership and coordination is in the hands of the Directorate General for Energy and Climate (DGEC), currently within the Ministry of Ecological Transition, while Andra, since 1991 an industrial and commercial agency independent of the waste producers, is responsible for implementation. Andra has been a forerunner in facilitating the interaction between society and the administration. It has done so by integrating social sciences into its own work, by financing and co-supervising in-house social science PhD work, and especially through its advisory committee on information and consultation, COESDIC,Footnote 14 established in response to the 2006 Waste Act. COESDIC is composed of three sociologists from France and Belgium, and a communication and engagement expert from Andra’s Swedish counterpart, SKB. Andra can be seen as an international forerunner in integrating social science expertise into its governance.

The largely state-owned waste producers are the EDF (the operator of the country’s 56 current reactors), the full-fuel-cycle company Orano, and the Commissariat of Atomic Energy (CEA). The CEA is a state nuclear research institute, the historical leader of the country’s nuclear sector, which has since the 1970s gradually lost its earlier leading role in the RD&D, promotion, and regulation of nuclear energy in France. The waste producers seek to strengthen their presence and visibility in the local region through numerous projects designed to foster local socioeconomic development (e.g., Lehtonen & Kojo, 2019).

Among the organisations of control, the ultimate authority on safety rests with the ASN, the national safety authority, independent from the government and industry since 2006. ASN has integrated civil society representatives into its expert advisory groups since 2014. The National Assessment Board, CNE2, is an independent organisation that evaluates the research and studies concerning radioactive waste management. The National Audit Office (Cour des Comptes) has gained an increasingly visible role in nuclear policies, including in the analysis costs and financing of Cigéo. In doing so, the National Audit Office informs debates and decisions within the three-party negotiations. Balancing between the waste producers’ desire  to minimise the costs of HLW management, and Andra’s interest in securing sufficient resources for implementing the project safely, the Directorate General for Energy and Climate (DGEC), acts as the arbiter. The Environment Authority (Autorité environnementale—AE) is mandated to give a statement on Andra’s environmental impact study—a part of the request for a DUP for Cigéo. Academic scholars from France and abroad are regularly solicited to review the repository plans.

Numerous institutions and mechanisms mediate and facilitate the articulation across the governance domains. The Parliamentary office for scientific and technological assessment (OPECST), set up in 1983, has played a vital role in shaping the project, as a key organisation integrating science and technology within the domain of politics and administration (e.g. Parotte, 2016). The High-Level Committee (CHN) is chaired by the energy minister and composed of politicians from national, regional, departmental, and municipal levels, representatives from the operators, prefects (department-level representatives of the central government), and other local representatives of the state. It monitors Andra’s work, and helps to facilitate the integration of Cigéo in the local and regional socio-economic context. Mediating between society and the political and administrative sphere is the National Commission on Public Debate (CNDP), an independent public organisation created in 1995, and since 2002 an independent administrative authority, which organises public participation in major infrastructure projects of national interest. In each consultation, CNDP invites any interested parties to submit position papers, often asks for counter-appraisals from specific groups, and holds public meetings at various locations deemed as relevant for the project in question. CNDP produces a summary of the debate, but does not have decision-making power, nor does it give recommendations. However, the developer must report the way in which it has taken the debate into account.

Several organisations facilitate interaction across all three domains. The multi-stakeholder High Commission for Transparency and Information on Nuclear Security (HCTISN)—established in 2006 and composed of 40 members representing operators, safety authorities, government, local information and surveillance committees, NGOs, trade unions, parliamentarians, and experts—fosters debate, information and analysis of issues relating to information and transparency in the nuclear area. In the wake of the Chernobyl accident, two still existing organisations of counter-expertise, ACROFootnote 15 in Brittany, and CRIIRADFootnote 16 in Rhône-Alpes in the Southeast of the country, set up their own independent laboratories for measuring radioactivity. The government subsequently accredited these laboratories as entities officially entitled to monitor radioactivity (Topçu, 2008). The Chernobyl accident also spurred experiments in open forms of expertise and civic vigilance, through the local information and surveillance committees (CLIs) and multi-stakeholder expert committees. The CLIS of Bure (Local information and monitoring committee of Bure) was created in 1999, following the selection of Bure to host the underground research laboratory. It is composed of the representatives of the state, Andra, local politicians, and local business and civil society organisations. CLIS informs the public, facilitates dialogue between stakeholders, and monitors the activities of the underground research laboratory and Cigéo.Footnote 17 The national umbrella organisation of local information committees, ANCCLI,Footnote 18 actively promotes public engagement and serves as a “watchdog”. ANCCLI and CLIS have been active in the process, led and coordinated by IRSN (Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety), whereby institutional and civil society actors have jointly co-constructed risk-related knowledge. In both involved departments, Meuse and Haute-Marne, a multi-stakeholder committee, GIP,Footnote 19 manages the distribution of the €30 million available to both Departments to facilitate the integration of the underground research laboratory and Cigéo in the local territory.

Finally, several NGOs and citizen movements are critical towards or actively opposed to the repository project.Footnote 20 These organisations have adopted diverse strategies in relation to the institutionalised engagement practices, some (e.g., Greenpeace, WISE-Paris) seeking to participate in all types of dialogue, others participating in CLIS and CNDP debates but rejecting closer collaboration, while many have decided to remain outside of the institutionalised engagement processes (Fig. 9.1).

Fig. 9.1
A screenshot of a webpage. A circle has Andra Cigeo in the center, and state departments for energy and prevention of risks, and decision on the top, and scientific council and industrial committee at the bottom. Around it are parliament, regional, departmental and local authorities, waste producers, R and D organizations, foreign counterparts, evaluators, regulatory bodies, and multi-stakeholder bodies of transparency and participation. There is a bidirectional relation between the center, and the surrounding.

(Adapted from: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjDyfWGzvLzAhUyDWMBHQ40BNE4ChAWegQIFBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.asn.fr%2FMedia%2FFiles%2F00-PNGMDR%2FPNGMDR-2016-2018%2FLa-demarche-de-concertation-sur-la-gouvernance-et-le-plan-directeur-d-exploitation-de-Cigeo%3F&usg=AOvVaw11IznHx8-AmP_oGw0Hunma)

Governance of Cigéo.

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9.4 Outcomes of Cross-Domain Coordination: Current Debates on Nuclear Waste in France

This section examines the experience of integration across the French HLW governance domains via four key notions: 1) the multiple trust and mistrust relationships that the governance mechanisms described in the previous Sect. (9.3) were designed to manage; 2) the role of the notion of reversibility in the management of mistrust, uncertainties and intergenerational justice concerns; 3) the policy impact of the integration measures; and 4) the role of the nuclear-sector legacies in shaping cross-domain interaction. The section draws on existing literature, as well as on the analysis of parliamentary debates in preparation for the 2006 and 2016 laws relating to HLW management.

9.4.1 Mistrust, Transparency, and “the State vs. Us”

The multiple and elaborate mechanisms and institutions established to reduce dysfunctional mistrust, especially between citizens and the politico-administrative and industrial circles driving HLW management in France, have had varying effects on the trust and mistrust relations. Mistrust is multidimensional, and pervades relations not only between domains of governance, but also within each domain. Moreover, mistrust is not only a governance challenge but also a mechanism for articulating across and within the governance domains.

Mistrust across domains

The mechanisms and institutions of integration have not dispelled the foundational mistrust between the “nucleocracy”—nuclear experts, civil servants and politicians trained to believe in the virtues of nuclear power—and various groups of the broader public. The nucleocracy is frequently blamed for undermining attempts at including civil society, and for seeking to instrumentalise participation to legitimise decisions made behind the scenes. The power of the nucleocracy is frequently evoked, for example in the media (Lehtonen et al. 2021), as an explanation for the failure of participatory and deliberative mechanisms to impact policy, for France’s continued reliance on nuclear energy, and for the lack or poor quality of information on HLW (on issues such as waste transports, contrasting repository cost estimates, or job creation estimates). Furthermore, mistrust is reciprocal; some key actors in the nuclear sector are often highly suspicious of citizen and NGO involvement, which they see as a threat to the integrity of science and rational decision-making.

Partly because of the perceived omnipotence of the nucleocracy, mistrust is prevalent also in the relations between the domains of society and science/technology. NGOs that boycott participatory procedures initiated by the authorities and industry often accuse social scientists involved in collaboration with HLW institutions of “acceptology”, i.e., for helping the government and industry to persuade local communities and broader publics to accept the repository project.

Mistrust within each governance domain

Mistrust is highly present within each domain.

Amongst the industry and nuclear operators, Andra actively seeks to elicit public trust by maintaining distance from the nuclear operators, to avoid being perceived as part of the nucleocracy. The operators, in turn, are mistrustful of Andra, doubting its ability to implement the industrial repository project, and suspecting Andra for unnecessarily bloating the budget for the construction of the repository.

Within the broader ‘nuclear community’, tensions have aggravated between the operators and the regulatory authorities ANS and IRSN. Mistrust has emerged in the recent disputes over the safety of the Flamanville EPR reactor, as the ASN and IRSN are both keen to demonstrate their independence in relation to the EDF. Some representatives of the operators have, in turn, mistrusted both Andra’s and IRSN’s work on co-creation of knowledge, arguing that engagement with civil society and NGOs critical towards the nuclear sector undermine the integrity and objectivity of science.

Within the sphere of science and technology, relations are tense between those social scientists who accept and others that refuse research collaboration with nuclear-sector institutions. In a similar vein, the active civil society is divided between radicals and moderates, the former being quick to condemn their NGO counterparts that collaborate with the state institutions, Andra and IRSN in the first hand. These divisions are particularly sharp in France, probably more so than in most other countries.

Although it is a defining feature of the political sphere in general, mistrust between defenders and opponents of the HLW project has grown in recent years, as demonstrated by the 2016 debates in Parliament concerning the reversibility bill. Both sides of the debate vigorously questioned the trustworthiness of their counterparts. The opponents pointed to the long series of failed safety promises and breaches of procedural justice in HLW management, such as the late-night manoeuvring by the promoters of the project who tried to introduce Cigéo in legislation unrelated to NWM. The project proponents, in turn, blamed the opponents for being motivated only by the desire to end the production of nuclear power, rather than truly seeking a safe solution to the HLW problem.

Mistrust across governance levels

The relations between the state and the local communities in the Bure region are characterised by entrenched perceptions of “us vs. them” and associated mutual mistrust. Andra is often the key target of criticism, perceived as the most visible local-level representative of the state. The lack of previous experience in the nuclear industry, the political and geographical peripherality of the region (Blowers, 2016), and its continuous economic and demographic decline since the 1970s combine to further sharpening the juxtaposition between ‘the local’ and ‘the national’ (e.g., Lehtonen & Kojo, 2019). The local-national cleavage manifests itself also in lasting tensions between Andra’s headquarters in the Paris region and its local branch in Bure. Local politicians and civil society, but also Andra’s local office, mistrust Andra’s “Parisians” for their alleged lack of local knowledge.

Mistrust among the locals has been spurred by the failed promise of the state to establish several underground research laboratories, but also by the governance of the community benefit packages via multi-stakeholder committees (GIPs)—in and of themselves designed to reduce mistrust. GIPs have engendered mistrust between the local communities competing for the funding, thus feeding the belief that the state employs divide-and-rule tactics to ensure the acceptance of the Cigéo project. The extension of the boundaries of the “proximity zone” eligible for support added to the tensions: it angered the small communities closest to and most directly affected by the repository, who consider themselves as the obvious priority recipients of support. The GIP support has rather reinforced than dispelled doubts by project opponents who see GIPs as illegitimate bribery, and as yet another proof of the untrustworthiness of the representatives of the state (Lehtonen & Kojo, 2019; Lehtonen et al., 2020). The schemes may have even aggravated some of the state-local-level tensions, as many state, industry and departmental actors blame the local communal leaders for seeking to maximise their commune’s share of the benefits, to the detriment of the region’s overall good. The nuclear operators, in turn, fear that the GIP funding may dissuade local politicians, who might not accept the project, but instead prefer the status quo which provides them with generous benefit schemes without the possible risks and undesired impacts of the project.

9.4.2 Uncertainties, Intergenerational Justice, and Reversibility

An overarching theme in the French debates concerns the responsibility of the present generation, as the main beneficiary of nuclear power, towards future generations. The analysis of reporting by Le Monde reveals an image of a sceptical and mistrustful “watchdog”, newspaper that stresses the multiple outstanding uncertainties that render the entire idea of a “waste solution” illusory (Lehtonen et al., 2021). The newspaper repeatedly stresses that no solution to HLW management has been implemented anywhere—a notion frequently evoked in the parliamentary debates in 2006. The uncertainties discussed concern safety, economics and financing, opposition movements, party politics, and energy policy at large, in a context of multilevel governance and interaction between low-, intermediate- and high-level waste management. Le Monde reported on uncertainties that stem from persistent citizen opposition, growing disagreements between political parties, especially after the Fukushima accident, the uncertain future of reprocessing and nuclear policy, the classification of waste (“recoverable material” vs. ultimate waste), and the cost and financing of the project—between Andra’s and waste producers’ contrasting estimates, with the government suggesting “compromise figures”.Footnote 21

Comparison between the parliamentary debates of 2006 and 2016 reveals changes in the approach to uncertainties. In 2006, the parliamentarians widely agreed on the need for further R&D and “keeping the options open”. Ten years later, with the debate now focused on a concrete repository project, the dominant view stressed that “our responsibility” was to act now, trust “our scientists”, and recognise that interim storage would provide only a short-term solution. A growing number of parliamentarians now defended the deep geological repository project as the rational and responsible “least-worst option”. Continuing to underscore the persistent uncertainties, the opponents claimed that a truly scientific and responsible attitude towards future generations would imply waiting for the better solutions that technological development would certainly bring about (Barthe et al., 2010). The complex role of social sciences emerged in the debate on uncertainties, when Le Monde reported on a sociology PhD thesis, conducted within Andra (Patinaux, 2017) and leaked to the newspaper by a prominent anti-Cigéo activist. Echoing the arguments of the opponents, Le Monde argued that the thesis proved “the impossibility of demonstrating safety”—precisely because of the uncertainties—and thus undermined the credibility and sincerity of Andra. Protracted debates between Andra, the nuclear operators, and opponents ensued, on the uncertainties related to the project but also on the role of social scientists in HLW management policy.

In the face of uncertainties, reversibility features as an overarching “metaframe”, a concept that helps to articulate across the domains of governance. In view of the likely technological progress, reversibility would maximise the choices available for future generations and spare them from dealing with the problem: reversibility would allow keeping the options open, while implementing a workable solution. The science and technology domain decisively shapes the debates on uncertainties and responsibility towards future generations. Andra’s waste management experts were not enthusiastic when the government announced reversibility as a key requirement. For them, reversibility was a “social and political constraint”, an obstacle to rational technical solutions (Andra, 2010, 35; Gilbert and Bourdeaux, 2006, pp. 39–40; Lehtonen, 2010). The experts’ preferred way out of the problem was phased, stepwise disposal—advocated by international organisations and today widely adopted in a number of countries—whereby the project would advance through progressive steps towards final irreversible geological disposal (Andra, 2010, p. 36). Opponents pointed out that this would undermine the very idea of reversibility, given that future generations would eventually be faced with a one-off decision to either close the site or keep it open (Barthe, 2009; Cézanne-Bert & Chateuraynaud, 2009). The reversibility debates juxtaposed the natural and engineering sciences with social sciences, the latter gaining influence thanks to international collaboration, directly through Andra’s advisory committee on information and consultation (COESDIC), but also via the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s Forum on Stakeholder Confidence (FSC), established in 2000. Social scientists suggested, among other things, turning interim storage into the reference option, to force continuous exploration of alternatives (Cézanne-Bert & Chateauraynaud, 2009, 84; Gilbert and Bourdeaux, 2006, pp. 37–38). In 2014, COESDIC suggested redefining reversible disposal as deep underground interim storage, in order to overcome the fruitless opposition between the advocates of geological disposal and interim storage.

Although at first a requirement from civil society, reversibility has progressively been appropriated by the dominant actors and integrated into legislation. For those opposed to geological disposal, the concept has come to represent another way used by the nuclear lobby to achieve “social acceptance” for the project and for nuclear energy (Cézanne-Bert & Chateauraynaud, 2009, p. 4). By contrast, local-level actors, including the local information and liaison committees (CLIS) and most local and departmental authorities, increasingly stress the importance of reversibility and monitoring (OECD-NEA, 2009). For Andra, reversibility has become a means of justifying why the Cigéo project can and should go ahead, despite the still numerous uncertainties concerning its safety (Patinaux, 2017, p. 416). Through these processes of articulation, societal demand has been translated into scientifically operationalizable concepts and criteria, with natural and technical sciences at the forefront in defining retrievability, and social science providing options of reversibility. The institutionalisation of the reversibility requirement in legal and administrative texts has been both shaped by, and driven efforts at, defining reversibility scientifically. Finally, the progressive strengthening of the reversibility requirement (from a governmental commitment in 1998, through a legal obligation in 2006, to specific criteria in 2016) has taken place in close interaction with political deliberations concerning the societal values and ideologies that underpin HLW management, in particular intergenerational justice.

9.4.3 Transparency, Openness, and Integration Across Domains: Any Impact on Policy?

Views vary concerning the actual ability of the transparency and engagement mechanisms to facilitate cross-domain interaction. In research interviews, both the pro- and anti-Cigéo HLW stakeholdersFootnote 22 invariably emphasised the long yet steady evolution towards greater transparency and openness to public engagement in the country’s HLW policy. In parliamentary debates of 2006 and 2016, project proponents generally underscored the need to continue along this positive path of greater transparency, while critics denounced the persisting secrecy and opacity, the broken promises, and the lack of impact of transparency and participation on decision-making. This critical perspective gained prominence and intensity over time, with increasingly frequent references to the opacity and excessive power wielded by the “nucleocracy” (see also Lehtonen et al., 2020). The nuclear operators, in turn, have criticised IRSN’s and Andra’s engagement practices for politicising science. Similarly divided evaluations concern the local-level engagement via CLIS. Its true impact has been contested, both by project opponents who have described CLIS as a paper tiger, and by proponents who blame it for being a platform in which the opponents can spread their “propaganda”.

The civil society actors indeed recurrently complain about the weak if not non-existent impact of transparency and participation on decision-making.Footnote 23 Patinaux (2017, p. 415) mentions reversibility as the only true concession by Andra to civil society demands, noting that even this demand has over time turned into a mode of governance employed by Andra and the actors driving the Cigéo project. The requirement that Cigéo start with a pilot phase also emanated from the co-construction efforts and the consensus conference of 2014, but Andra translated the pilot phase merely into the first step in the disposal project. This watered-down the idea of a true test phase whose results would inform the decision on whether to implement Cigéo.

The shifting experience of the National Commission on Public Debate (CNDP) illustrates the opportunities and limitations of “invited” participation in fostering engagement across the governance domains, when strong mistrust and asymmetries of power prevail. It also shows the potential virtues of mistrust in spurring integration across governance domains. Already the 2005–2006 waste debate was seen by many critics as a means whereby the nuclear technocracy and the government legitimised the existing policy (Lhomme, 2006; Lehtonen, 2010). However, at the time, CNDP represented an innovation, and even the critics recognised the value of the debate in consolidating the authority of the CNDP as an independent arbiter and social innovator in HLW governance (Global Chance, 2006, p. 64). The immediate impact of the failed 2013 public debate, by contrast, was to undermine CNDP’s legitimacy and feed mistrust. Yet, even this seeming failure has also spurred innovation and reform, in the short term through the organisation of a consensus conference as a partial substitute to the lacking CNDP debate, and in the longer term via the adoption of new engagement tools and practices by the CNDP (Blanck, 2017, p. 460).

9.4.4 The Ambiguous French Nuclear Legacies

The articulation across domains takes place in the shadow of multiple material, economic, institutional, and symbolic legacies of the French nuclear sector. Material and economic realities include the need to manage waste from the 56 currently operating reactors and a number of reactors already shut down—the management of the waste from France’s early natural uranium graphite gas reactors poses particular and urgent technical challenges. They further encompass the economic and employment heritage of the nuclear sector, and the costs of waste management, which will be high, regardless of policy decisions. Institutionally, the legacy consists of the innumerable organisms set up to support and develop nuclear technology, including its military applications, and the alleged power of the ‘nucleocracy’. Among the key symbolic elements features the Janus’ face of the nuclear sector as a beloved purveyor of progress, modernity, jobs, and export revenue on the one hand (Hecht, 2009), and as a bastion of secrecy, opacity, and technocracy on the other (Lepage, 2014). In this context, the waste problem represents the nuclear-sector’s Achilles’ Heel—critical for the continuity of the French nuclear industry and its public acceptance. In the parliamentary debates of 2006 and 2016, proponents highlighted the benefits of the nuclear sector for the French and global society, in supporting France’s climate responsibility, technological excellence, job creation, energy independence, and role in developing an internationally applicable waste solution (Lehtonen et al., 2021). For critics, this very progress and French leadership have led to a path dependency that needs to be broken, although the long legacy of waste, resulting from past choices, would nevertheless persist.

These nuclear-sector-specific features are embedded in the broader French governance traditions founded on ideological trust in the state and the public service tradition (the EDF as its incarnation in the energy sector), concentration of decision-making power in the hands of the central government, blended with a profound mistrust and imaginaries juxtaposing the state with civil society (e.g., Saurugger, 2007). Local-level perceptions reveal ambiguous attitudes towards the state as a highly trusted and single legitimate guardian of the public interest on the one hand, and a mistrusted natural adversary of grassroots and civil society on the other. The repeated experiences of “broken promises” of the mistrusted “nucleocracy” have further buttressed mistrust. The nuclear heritage of France is perceived by critics as a succession of broken promises, which have undermined public trust in the nuclear elites. Among the key broken HLW-related promises were that several underground research laboratories would be built, and that community approval for an underground laboratory in Bure would not automatically translate into approval of a repository. Local-level ambiguities are compounded by the region’s history, deeply marked by imaginaries of a “sacrificed land”, allegedly abandoned by the government as a buffer zone in Franco-German wars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Le Hir, 2017). Nevertheless, the locals frequently criticised the state for its passiveness and failure or unwillingness to take a strong lead on the project. In a region without a nuclear tradition, efforts by project proponents to nurture pride for a nationally vital project face an uphill battle (Lehtonen et al., 2020).

9.5 Conclusions: Interaction Between the Governance Dimensions

French HLW governance has a long, complex, and conflict-ridden history of mutual mistrust relations. These have evolved together with the country’s powerful nuclear-military complex, a “nucleocracy” composed of closely integrated politico-administrative and scientific-technological domains, with the societal domain largely excluded until the late 1980s. To manage the mistrust between society and the nucleocracy, and initially to unblock the HLW governance stalemate in 1990, numerous institutions and mechanisms have been established to mediate between the governance domains—in particular to better integrate the societal domain in governance. The articulation between the governance domains in France can be examined through three perspectives: 1) the multiple and mutual mistrust relations across and within the domains as drivers and mechanisms of articulation, 2) reversibility as the key conceptual device of articulation and management of mistrust, and 3) the long-term context and policy landscape, characterised by the longstanding legacies of the nuclear sector policies, decisions, institutions, and material artefacts.

The French HLW sector has been among the pioneers in developing and institutionalising “counter-expertise”, multi-stakeholder dialogue, integration of social sciences in HLW management, and most recently, in co-creation of knowledge between institutional and citizen experts. The media has served as an increasingly vigilant watchdog especially since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The multiple measures of integration have not eliminated mistrust but have instead further complexified the trust and mistrust relations, both between and within the domains of governance. For example, the experiments in the co-creation of knowledge and the integration of social sciences into HLW institutions have generated tensions and divided opinions within the politico-administrative sphere, among the diverse civil society actors, and within the social science community. On the other hand, reciprocal mistrust relations have served as a driver for greater integration and better articulation between the governance levels. It has spurred the development of mistrustful civic vigilance, and the establishment of a prudent phased approach, with both scientific and societal control embedded in the process—arguably a precondition for socially robust policies of HLW management. The various institutions of coordination and negotiation across domains indeed build on mistrust as a key governance mechanism. As a central concept in French HLW governance, reversibility can be seen as a key conceptual device designed not only to manage mistrust but also to harness this mistrust for the purpose of socially more robust policies and decisions. The fact that reversibility may not succeed in reducing mistrust, given that many opponents consider the concept as an illusion, does not undermine its value in facilitating interaction across the governance domains.

However, mistrust and reversibility operate in a specific and largely problematic context of persisting asymmetries of power between the still powerful “nucleocracy”, ambiguous relations of the French society with the state, and the multiple path dependencies generated by the heavy legacy of the nuclear sector in the country. Furthermore, in a society characterised by deep mistrust (e.g., Algan and Cahuc, 2007), the risk is real that the potentially virtuous healthy mistrust might turn into protracted and fruitless conflicts and dysfunctional mistrust. Such dangers are particularly acute given the high uncertainties concerning the French nuclear sector, which finds itself at a crossroads, plagued by recent highly problematic reactor projects and spiralling costs, rapidly declining costs of renewable energy, the government’s official commitment to reducing the share of nuclear electricity to 50%, and the possible abandonment of reprocessing for largely economic reasons. Pushed into the corner, fighting for its place in society, the nuclear sector will weigh in on decisions concerning nuclear new-build and the development of advanced reactor technologies that would allow for the “closing of the fuel cycle”. Under such conditions, HLW governance continues to face an unstable and unpredictable future, and the nuclear sector may waver in its commitment to openness and cross-domain interaction.