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• the “professional public”, which comprises the licensees of nuclear installations, radioactive material transporters, health professionals, learned societies, professional associations who require operational and regulatory information. This category also includes other nuclear stakeholders, such as technical experts and approved organisations;
• ASN’s institutional audience, which in particular comprises elected officials and members of parliament, especially the members of the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choices (OPECST).

As part of ASN’s duty to inform, recalled in the Nuclear Transparency and Security Act 2006-686 of 13 June 2006 (known as the “TSN” Act), this report presents the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2008. In this chapter, ASN describes its actions and tools for public information and transparency. This chapter also presents the tools and actions used to inform the public about nuclear safety and radiation protection by other stakeholders.

The information issued by ASN is aimed at a variety of audiences:

• the “general public”: this concerns people who either for personal reasons or because of current events find themselves at one time or another interested in ASN and what it is doing. Their interest in nuclear matters is often linked to topical, newsworthy events. The term general public also refers to all those who are more informed and who, without having any professional capacity in the field, are interested for a variety of reasons in nuclear safety in general and its supervision and regulation in particular. This is for example the case of the members of environmental protection associations or the Local Information Committees (CLIs);
• the media: whether regional, national or international, and whether written or audiovisual, the media are of particular importance for ASN, especially given how often and how frequently it is contacted by them and the variety of reasons concerned;