Local Information Committees (CLIs) work alongside the nuclear facilities. These Committees, created at the initiative of the General Councils as recommended by a circular from the Prime Minister on 15 December 1981, have a twofold role: to monitor the impact of these facilities and to inform the populations by means they consider most appropriate.

To do this, they require:

• the necessary information, in particular that forwarded by the licensees and by the administrations that supervise them;

• funding which, according to the above-mentioned circular, must be provided by the local authorities reaping economic benefits from the facility considered.

To help the CLIs expand their actions, the ASN also provides them with financial assistance. This assistance is used in particular to finance 50% of the specific action and assessment expenses of CLIs requesting assistance, and up to 100% of the cost of public information actions. The DSNRs also provide technical support as and when needed. In 2005, State financial support for action by the CLIs and their association amounted to about 350,000 euros.

The CLIs must aim whenever possible to develop their own opinions and adopt a questioning attitude to their various contacts. They comprise locally elected representatives (generally about half the members), representatives from environmental protection associations, trade unionists, socio-professionals and representatives of the public authorities.

Nearly 30 CLIs were created under the circular of 15 December 1981. To this must be added the local information and monitoring committee (CLIS) of the Bure underground laboratory, created under application of the law of 30 December 1991 concerning research into radioactive waste management (the corresponding legal provision now appears in article L. 542-13 of the Environment Code), along with about fifteen information committees created around defence-related nuclear sites, in application of articles 4 and 5 of a decree dated 5 July 2001.

Work began on creating a new CLI for the Large National Heavy Ion Accelerator (GANIL) in Caen and a CLI should also shortly be set up for the uranium mining sites in the Limousin region.

As in previous years, CLI activity reached high levels in 2005.

The CLI generally held one or more plenary meetings, often supplemented by meetings of specialist committees ("environment", "communication" and "socio-economic" sub-committees at Cadarache, "technical" and "population safety" sub-committees at Gravelines, working party on the environmental monitoring plan around the FBFC plant in Romans, "science and society", "information, training and governance" and "news" groups at Saclay, "Economic and "Environment" committees at the Valduc SEIVA (Valduc information exchange structure), and so on).

Site annual operating reports were presented to most of the CLIs. The incidents which occurred were generally reviewed in depth.

The CLIs also dealt with subjects such as the nuclear transparency and safety bill (Blayais CLIN), alerting the population (Civaux CLI), distribution of iodine tablets (Cattenom, Chooz, Gravelines, Nogent CLIs, among others), the EPR project (Dampierre and Flamanville CLIs), the ITER project (Cadarache CLI), etc.

The CLIs are generally involved in the emergency exercices, and at the very least receive a presentation of their conclusions.

The CLIs are invited to take part in ASN inspections: in 2005, the Fessenheim CLS (local surveillance committee) and the CLIs Gravelines, Golfech, Nogent-sur-Seine, Paluel-Penly, Saclay and Saint Laurent-des-Eaux in particular responded to this invitation. They can also request specific assessments (Cadarache CLI on analysis of the impact of the site, Fessenheim CLS on seismic "micro-zoning”, Gard CLI on the radiological consequences of the flooding of December 2003 in the Petite Camargue area, Golfech CLI for chemical releases, and so on).

In order to inform the population, nearly half of the CLIs publish newsletters. Others are offered space in the publications of the General Council or the commune. Information about CLI activities appears on the ASN website and that of the national CLI association (ANCLI). Some CLIs also have their own websites (Bure local committee , Golfech and Gravelines CLIs, La Hague (Special and permanent information committee for the COGEMA La Hague facility). Others have pages on local authority websites.

The Valduc SEIVA made a significant contribution to the organisation of the 2005 ANCLI conference held in Dijon.