France - Convention on Nuclear Safety. Sixth National report for the 2014 review meeting

The Convention on Nuclear Safety, hereinafter referred to as 'the Convention', is one of the results of international discussions initiated in 1992 in order to contribute to maintaining a high level of nuclear safety worldwide. The convention sets a number of nuclear safety objectives and defines measures to meet them. France signed the Convention on 20 September 1994, the date on which it was opened for signature during the IAEA General Conference, and approved it on 13 September 1995. The Convention entered into force on 24 October 1996. For many years France has been participating actively in international initiatives to enhance nuclear safety. It considers the Convention on Nuclear Safety to be an important instrument for achieving this aim. The areas covered by the Convention have long been part of the French approach to nuclear safety. The purpose of this sixth report, which was drafted pursuant to Article 5 of the Convention and which covers the period 2010 to mid-2013, is to present the measures taken by France in order to fulfil each of its obligations as specified in the said Convention. Since the Convention applies to all nuclear-power generating reactors most of this report is dedicated to the measures taken in order to ensure their safety. However, as in previous reports, France has decided in this sixth report also to present the measures that were taken for all research reactors. First of all, research reactors are actually subject to the same overall regulations as nuclear-power reactors with regard to safety and radiation protection. Then, within the framework of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, to which France is a Contracting Party, an account was made of the measures taken in those respective fields with regard to research reactors. Lastly, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), of which France is a member, in March 2004 approved the Code of Conduct on the Safety of Research Reactors, which reiterates most of the provisions of this present Convention. For this report, France took into account the lessons learned with the five previous reports: it is a self-standing document, which has been developed mostly on the basis of existing documents and reflects the views of the regulatory body and the licensees. Hence, for every chapter in which the regulatory body is not the only entity to express its own views, a three-fold structure was adopted: firstly a description of the regulations by the regulatory authority, followed by an overview presented by the licensees of their measures for regulatory compliance, and finally an analysis by the regulatory authority of licensee measures. This report is structured according to the Guidelines on National Reports, as revised at the special meeting of August 2012. The presentation progresses 'article by article', with each one giving rise to a separate chapter at the beginning of which the corresponding text of the Convention appears in a box with a half-tone background. After the introduction, which presents certain general aspects as well as national nuclear policy, the summary gives a description of the main changes that have taken place since the fifth national report and the safety prospects for the next three years. Part C covers general considerations (chapters 4 to 6), part D summarises general safety considerations (chapter 10 to 16), part F presents the safety of facilities (chapter 17 to 19), and finally part G presents international cooperation measures (chapter 20). The report is supplemented by eight appendices. With regard to the steps taken at the national level further to the TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident (hereinafter referred to as the Fukushima Daiichi accident), the Officers meeting of 29 October 2012 recommended including a general presentation in a sub-chapter of the Summary. Finally, further to the meeting of the Officers of the Convention on Nuclear Safety in October 2012, France took the initiative to present an appendix to the National Report presenting France's actions to support IAEA's nuclear safety action plan