Posted on 03/17/2007 6:44:02 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
RENNES, France - Tens of thousands of people filled the streets of five French cities Saturday to protest plans to build the next generation of nuclear reactors.
The simultaneous protests organized by Get Out Of Nuclear, a collective made up of hundreds of associations, was intended to raise the prominence of the issue in the run-up to April-May presidential elections. Smaller-party candidates resolutely opposed to the construction of new facilities called European pressurized-water reactors joined the protesters.
The nation must "get out of the nuclear business" and "invest in renewable energies like solar energy or wind power," said Olivier Besancenot of the Radical Communist League, marching with protesters in the western city of Rennes. Organizers claimed the number of protesters in Rennes was 30,000 to 40,000. Police estimated the crowd at 10,000.
There were also protests, with estimated crowds ranging from 4,000 to 9,000 people, in Lyon, Toulouse, Lille and Strasbourg.
The most nuclear energy-dependent country in the world, France has dozens of reactors churning out most of its electricity.
The first EPR is to be built in Flamanville, in northern France, and would be operational by 2012 — when the new president's five-year mandate ends.
Electricite de France, the state electrical company, has said the reactor would pave the way for other plants to adopt the more efficient pressurized-water technology by 2020.
Socialist candidate Segolene Royal, whom polls place second behind the conservative Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, has said she would "open the debate" on EPR construction should she win, but made no "yes" or "no" commitment. Sarkozy has not directly addressed the issue.
That's not a lot of people. Sort of the the equivilant of a late season, weeknight baseball game when your team is 20 games out and the opponent is also 20 games out.
And people are paying for the baseball game.
Appreciated anyway--will make a freepmail vote for you.
So far, two are for a smaller version (including your vote), and one is for keeping it the way it is.
The goal should be to minimize the amount of vertical scroll required to get past it. So a wide one is ok but tall is bad.
They will quickly run out of enough electricity to light their salon gatherings, right after they run out of money to build anything anymore.
The rally was underwritten by a grant from OPEC and perhaps the Chubb group.
Something to take into consideration, then. Appreciated.
Maybe if we just explain it to him he'll see the error of his ways... lol
The millions of anti-science, anti-technology, anti-capitalist moonbats that infest Western countries will not stop until the entire earth looks like rural Bangladesh.
I seem to recall that when Mitterrand first campaigner he was mildly on board the anti-nuclear bandwagon. Within a year of taking office he was firmly back in the pro-nuclear camp. I think the trade unions had something to do with that. Socialist that he was, he knew what side of his bread was buttered.
The French as a nation have a better attitude about nuclear power than we do - and a pretty good safety and cleanliness record on top of that.
I wonder how many of these Luddites were imports from Germany, Spain and England as well - professional leftist protesters.
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