The response by the authorities to an incident or accident is determined by a number of legal texts concerning nuclear safety, radiation protection, public order and civil defence, as well as by the emergency plans.

Law 2004-811 of 13 August 2004 modernising civil defence sets new guidelines. It in particular provides for an up to date inventory of the risks, an overhaul of operational planning, the performance of exercises involving the population, information and training of the population, an operational watch and the alert. In 2005, a number of decrees implementing this law were adopted, in particular:
– decree 2005-1156 of 13 September 2005 concerning the local safeguard plan;
– decree 2005-1157 of 13 September 2005 concerning the ORSEC plan (general plan organising the emergency services if a disaster is declared by the State at departmental, defence zone, or maritime prefecture level);
– decree 2005-1158 of 13 September 2005 concerning PPIs.

The main purpose of these regulations is to organise the emergency services at Mayor and Prefect level.

The scope of a nuclear emergency and more generally of any radiological emergency, is clarified in the interministerial directives described at the beginning of this chapter. The response organisation of the authorities and of the licensee is presented in the above arrangement. This is specifically designed to deal with an accident in an EDF reactor. A similar organisation is put in place when dealing with another nuclear licensee or in the event of an accident involving a radioactive material transport. In this latter case, the emergency plan is referred to as the Specialised Emergency Plan for the Transport of Radioactive Materials (PSS-TMR).