French practice of limited application of quantitative safety goals

A considerable amount of theoretical thinking has been spent in the recent years on the best way to include quantitative risk assessment in the safety regulatory process, and everybody recognizes the difficulties and uncertainties existing in all the proposed approaches. Notwithstanding, the regulatory procedure underway in a country conducting a nuclear power program, such as France, implies the daily use of the appropriate level of acceptable risks, even though they are not explicitly quantified. This paper will detail the effort made in France these last few years to make explicit the concept of quantitative safety goals when it seemed feasible, both for PWRs and LMFBRs safety assessments. It will point out the unconsistencies in the present approach, and try to define the steps towards a more satisfactory situation