France's oldest nuclear plant at Fessenheim in the country's north-east will not be closed before the end of President François Hollande's mandate in 2017,energy and ecology minister Ségolène Royal indicated on Tuesday, reports Reuters.
Closing the plant was one of Hollande's election promises, but his socialist government's "energy transition" law, intended to cut reliance on nuclear power, only caps nuclear capacity at current levels and does not schedule plant closures.
The capacity cap would force state-controlled utility EDF to close one or two of its ageing reactors when it opens the new EPR reactor it is building in Flamanville. But EDF last week again delayed the start-up of that plant to 2018, after the end of Hollande's term.
"The law is clear. When Flamanville opens, Fessenheim will have to close," Royal told reporters.
Several green party politicians and anti-nuclear groups said Royal's comments mean Fessenheim will not be closed for some time.
"Saying that you need to open a new reactor before you can close an old one goes against the logic of the energy transition," said campaigning group Sortir du Nucleaire [Nuclear Phase-out] in a statement.