Well, the French have an advantage in that they told NIMBY'ing citizens to get bent. 3/4 of the energy in France is Nuclear-produced, and running that many cookers means they have a commerical edge. If the United States had taken a similar approach in the 1970's, you would have had a similar edge, commerically.
Technically, an American reactor is a remarkable piece of
machinery, and the arrival of smaller modular designs is only improving this. It's all a matter of money and priorities.
As a sidenote, Canada makes a hell of a reactor too.:)
Speaking of which, did you see the little movie on the Areva website?
http://www.us.areva.com/ad-campaign-film.php
Nuclear juice has never been so darn CUTE!
That Areva ad on the page you linked is pretty funny. It is a much shorter version of one they ran a year ago that showed Uranium being dug up in Canada, then processed in large ships as it went over to China, where they put it into reactors cores to supply the city. They've made the ad shorter and cut out the ship part, but you can tell the the futuristic city they show has an Asian look to it, even though they try to pass it off as Kansas City in the zoom out.
One thing I've always admired about the French is that they have never put up with any protesters or other bullcrap getting in the way of their nuclear ambitions, either weapons or electrical power. Since the French and the Japanese have the best record of building and running nuke plants, it should not be surprising that all of the American talent in this area has withered on the vine and is all sold out to these two countries.
Now if we want nuke plants, we have to put up with Sierra Club lawsuits and then outsource the job to get it done. Talk about adding insult to injury...