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published in 2009 after incorporation of the comments it has received (see chapter 6). It also devoted an issue of its “Contrôle” magazine to the subject of decommissioning. This issue was presented at a press conference in November 2008. On these various occasions, ASN was able to observe the keen interest in decommissioning, on the part of both the public and the media. ASN will be continuing its actions with the aim of stimulating a debate around this subject. It informed the French National Public Debates Commission that it was in favour of organising a public debate on decommissioning, as requested by a number of associations.

The term decommissioning generally covers all the technical or administrative activities performed after shutdown of a nuclear installation in order to achieve a predetermined final status. These activities may in particular include equipment disassembly, clean-out of premises and soils, demolition of civil engineering structures, processing, packaging, removal and disposal of radioactive and other waste.

As many nuclear installations were built between the 1950s and the 1980s, a large number of them are being gradually shutdown and then decommissioned, particularly over the past fifteen years. In 2008, about thirty nuclear installations of all types (electricity generating or research reactors, laboratories, fuel reprocessing plants, waste treatment facilities, etc), were shut down or were undergoing decommissioning in France. The safety and radiation protection of the decommissioning of these installations therefore gradually became major issues for ASN.

With the specific aspects of decommissioning activities (changing nature of the risks, rapid changes in the installation status, duration of the operations, etc.) ruling out implementation of all the regulatory principles that were relevant during the installation operating period, the nuclear installation decommissioning regulations have evolved gradually since the 1990s. This situation was recently clarified and supplemented by the TSN Act.

Decommissioning is a major issue for ASN, which has gradually built up the regulations and the policy applicable to this phase in the life of basic nuclear installations. In 2008, it released a memo presenting its nuclear installation decommissioning policy. This memo will be finally