French Greens ratify election pact with Socialists on nuclear power

Nov 20, 2011, 14:32 GMT

Paris - The leadership of France's ecologist party at the weekend ratified an election pact with the opposition Socialists, after the Socialists agreed to dramatically reduce France's nuclear activity if they win next June's general election.

In a vote late Saturday, 74 per cent of delegates at a Europe Ecology-Greens conference voted in favour of the deal, under which the Socialists have agreed to close 24 out of 58 reactors by 2025 and end the production of MOX, a recycled nuclear fuel.

The Socialists also agreed not to compete with the Greens in around 60 out of 577 constituencies, giving the Greens a chance to boost their presence in the National Assembly, where they currently have four seats.

The Greens, for their part, agreed to drop their insistence that a future Socialist government shut the new-generation nuclear reactor being built at Flamanville in northern France.

The deal does not cover next year's presidential election, which takes place in April, with a possible runoff in May.

The Greens are running their own candidate, former investigating magistrate Eva Joly, against Socialist candidate Francois Hollande and incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Joly, who had insisted on the closure of the Flamanville reactor, did not attend the Greens congress, fuelling speculation of a rift between her and the party.

France gets 75 per cent of its electricity from 58 nuclear reactors.

Atomic energy has broad support but a growing number of French are calling for a reduced role for nuclear, in the wake of Japan's Fukushima disaster.

Hollande has promised to reduce the share of nuclear in the energy mix to 50 per cent by 2025 - a plan President Nicolas Sarkozy says will cause 'considerable damage' to industry.