Antinuclear movement

The antinuclear movement indicates the whole of the people and organizations (associations, trade unions, political parties) which are opposed in a general way to the use of the nuclear energy. This opposition can extend from the atomic bomb to the weapons using the Uranium impoverished, until the production of electricity of origin nuclear, the Irradiation of the food and the use of the Radioactivité. The opponents with the nuclear power support that there exist alternative solutions, such as the Non-violence, the saving energy or the renewable energies.

There exists also an opposition specific to the Nuclear weapon, which one can describe as “military antinuclear movement”.

Origin of the antinuclear movement

The nuclear engineering is shown by the antinuclear movement to be a “technology at the risk” which can endanger the populations, because of the security issues which it implies (dramatic consequences in the event of serious accident, absence of perennial solution for the management of waste with long life…).

Hundreds of regional, national or international groups (Greenpeace, WWF, Friendly of the Earth (Friends off the earth), the Clamshell Alliance (New England), the Abalone Alliance (California), Stop golfech (Tarn-et-Garonne),…) are opposed to the development nuclear energy, while supporting which it generates of the radioactive Pollution, of the risks of Nuclear proliferation, the hidden economic costs and a great vulnerability vis-a-vis the Terrorisme. Certain groups go until organizing actions of non-violent civil Désobéissance, the such inscription of slogans on lathes of cooling of the Nuclear plant of Belleville or the inspection citizen of the Center of Tests of the Moors with Biscarosse in 2006. Proposals for alternatives, technological decentralized like the saving energy, the renewable energies, or social like the Non-violence and the Participative democracy, becoming the reference in these movements.

Some claimed to observe a strong bond between the opponents with nuclear energy and those which required a unilateral disarmament during the Cold war. Others bind the antinuclear movement to currents of the movement environmentalist which preach the respect of the environment and the responsibility to bequeath to the future generations a ground without Radioactive waste.

History

After the second world war

The antinuclear movement was born after the Second world war, in answer to the atomic bombardments on Japan. The antinuclear movement is then a pacifist movement , for which the ecological considerations are absent or secondary.

March 18th, 1950, the Appel of Stockholm of Frederic Joliot-Curie aims at interdir the Nuclear bomb in the world. To the the United States, personalities such as Barry Commoner or Linus Pauling are opposed to the nuclear tests towards the end of the Années 1950.

In 1958, under the impulse of Bertrand Russell the Campagne for Nuclear Disarmament in the United Kingdom launches the first walk of opposition to the nuclear weapons, of London with Aldermaston, place where a manufacturing plant of nuclear missiles had been installed. The logo imagined for this movement by the designer will remain like universal (associate later in the movement hippie or Peace and Love).

In 1963 is created the Mouvement Against the Atomic Weapon (MCAA) by Claude Bourdet and Jean Rostand. The same year, the Traité prohibition partial of the nuclear tests proposes the stop of the atmospheric atomic tests on the ground and in water, it is signed by more than 150 nations except for China and of France. In 1964 takes place the International Conference of Thyringen in Sweden joining together organizations opposed to the nuclear armament asserting non-alignment. April 26th, 1964 is organized a gathering of: 120000 people with the call of the National committee Against the Deterrent force (CNFF) in the Park of the Buckets in Paris. July 1st, 1968 is signed the Traité nuclear non-proliferation.

The years 1970

In the Years 1970, the appearance of sensitivities environmentalists begins the debate on the consequences of the use of the Technologie S complexes, of which the nuclear energy in particular because it is then in a phase of development and thus not established yet well, but also because it is closely related to technologies and concepts of the Nuclear weapon, report/ratio which was codified during the signature of the Traité nuclear non-proliferation.

  • April 12th, 1971: First demonstration against the civilian nuclear in France, 1,500 people take part in walk on Fessenheim.
  • July 10th and 11th 1971: Peaceful walk vis-a-vis the Nuclear plant of joining together Bugey: 15000 people.
  • 1975: Occupation of the building site of the nuclear plant of Wyhl (Germany) by: 25000 militants for 8 months. Of Kaisergaust (Swiss) to Gerstheim (the Low-Rhine), 12 projects of engines on the the Rhine are abandoned.
  • July 4th, 1976: : 20000 opponents come to express peacefully against Super-Phenix organize a sit-in the calm one.
  • 1977: at the time of a demonstration of: 60000 people dead of Vital Michalon at the time of the demonstration against Super-Phenix in Creys-Malville in France
  • 1979: Nuclear accident of Three Mile Island with the the United States
  • 1979: Vote by referendum of the stop of the nuclear power in Sweden

The years 1980

In the years 1980, the opposition to nuclear energy is expressed on environmental bases: water pollution of the rivers and rivers, accidents of Nuclear reactor known or potential, escapes of radioactive products during deliveries, storage or treatment of the Radioactive waste in the long run.

  • 1980: opposition and stop of the project of nuclear plant of Plogoff
  • 1986: Catastrophe of Tchernobyl
  • 1986: Vote by referendum of the Arrêt of the nuclear power in Italy
  • 1987: Abandonment of the project of nuclear factory of Reprocessing of Wackersdorf (Germany) after many demonstrations and a petition recorded by the course constitutional of Bavaria.

The years 1990

  • 1990 : Vote by referendum of a moratorium on the construction of new nuclear plants in Suisse (moratory not renewed at the court of a second referendum in 2003, which also required the abandonment of nuclear energy)
  • 1994: Decision of the Parliament of the Stop of the nuclear power to the Netherlands
  • July 1999: Vote Arrêt of the nuclear power in Belgium

21e century

  • 2000 : Decision of the Stop of the nuclear power in Germany
  • 2003: In Switzerland, following Referendum, nonrenewal of the moratorium on the construction of new power stations and refusal of an abandonment of nuclear energy.
  • Libya gives up officially its nuclear program, like nine months result of secret negociations between Libya, the United States and Great Britain.
  • 2006: Demonstration in Cherbourg against the project of engine EPR with Flamanville, gathering close to: 30000 people according to the organizers: 12500 according to the police force and more: 20000 according to the local general informations.
  • 2007: Demonstrations in Rennes, Lille, Toulouse, Lyon and Strasbourg against the construction of the nuclear reactor EPR in Flamanville. : 62000 demonstrators through all France according to the organizers.
  • Advertisement of Bolivia of its renouncement of any arsenal of war, including any nuclear arsenal implicitly. This advertisement should be followed by an inscription in its constitution.

Cultural aspects

The antinuclear movement was popularized by American artists: Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne recorded songs on nuclear energy and its alternatives, and much of them were made stop in demonstrations. Many other films were made on the subject, like the China syndrome (nominated with the Academy Awards of 1979) and the Mystery Silkwood , which illustrate the effects of core fusion and radioactive contamination.

In France, many artists (such as Jean-Yves Chetail, Marcel and its orchestra, Kent, Wampas,…) occurred in concerts in favor of the exit of the nuclear power.

The antinuclear movement in the world

In Europe

In Germany, in Belgium, Austria, Sweden, under the influence of the ecologist S (often antinuclear), the governments decided to give up the nuclear Filière gradually and not to build a news Nuclear plants.

In Germany

In Germany, the transport of radioactive materials became one of the main subjects of mobilizations of the antinuclear movement. In particular, transport of waste between the factory Areva NC of La Hague and centers it temporary storage ( Transportbehälterlager ) of Gorleben are surrounded by strongly mediatized demonstrations and an important police plan.

In France

In France, country having the greatest number of Nuclear reactors per capita with the world (58 engines for 65 million inhabitants), the antinuclear ones denounces the nuclear accident risk, estimates that there is no solution acceptable for the radioactive waste and that the real costs of the dismantling of nuclear installations are underestimated. They also notice that France invested many resources lasting of the decades in the civilian nuclear and soldier, without consultation of the population, and that she now shows an important delay in the development of the renewable energies with respect to her neighbors.

They estimate that the State is guilty of misinformation concerning the passage of the “cloud” of the Catastrophe of Tchernobyl on France.

See also: Consequences of the catastrophe of Tchernobyl in France

July 31st, 1977, a demonstration in Creys-Malville gathers more: 50000 demonstrators in front of the breeder Super-Phenix. It shows the death of a demonstrator, Vital Michalon, 31 years, and many casualties.

See also: Demonstration in Creys-Malville in 1977

In 1978, in order to reduce the electric deficit of the Brittany, the French government plans to establish a Nuclear plant on the commune of Plogoff. The project is rejected by many inhabitants of the area, joined by French and foreign opponents with nuclear energy. The conflict will end in the abandonment of the project.

See also: Business of Plogoff

In 1999 and 2000, multiple demonstrations prevented the search for a site intended to accommodate a laboratory of characterization of the granite like rock host for the storage of radioactive waste HAVL and MALV. The “mission of dialog granite”, made up of three high-civils servant, could not organize the dialogs envisaged. In his report/ratio, the “Mission of dialog written granite”: “Association Sortir the nuclear power was shown particularly active by revealing the chart of the sites, episode presented like an escape, by ensuring resistance to the dialog everywhere, and by supporting via its members the organization of local demonstrations”. In the absence of site granite, the only underground laboratory is the underground Research laboratory of Meuse/Haute-Marne established in Bure and which characterizes an argillaceous rock host.

The November 7th 2004, in Avricourt (the Moselle), a militant CNT 21 years, Sebastien Briat, dies accidentally whereas it took part in a demonstration against a railway convoy of nuclear waste. Its death had of it a great repercussion within the antinuclear movement and the incident is reported in the international press.

The network Sortir the nuclear power which coordinates this type of demonstrations in France denounces in particular the facility with which terrorists could get the route of this transport.

In margin of the antinuclear movement in Europe

The antinuclear movement was marked by events violent one:

  • In November 1979, Marco Camenisch sabotages electric pylons with the explosive, to be “interdependent of resistance against the nuclear plants, social resistance and ecologist and the revolutionary fight of social release against the domination of class and the exploitation of the man and nature”.
  • In the night of the January 18th 1982, five rockets are drawn against the building site from the Nuclear plant of Super-Phenix, without the authors of the attack being identified. In 2002, Chaïm Nissim, former deputy ecologist of Geneva, affirms being the author of the attack and to be itself gotten the rocket launcher near the group of the terrorist Carlos. In 2003, Jose Romelé, general secretary of the UNSA trade union of the Nuclear plant of Civaux, states to have launched criminal continuations for “attempt at manslaughter with beginning of execution, attack by explosive, breach of liberty of work” and “apology for crime”. Chaïm Nissim hopes to escape a setting in examination by a possible regulation from its acts, in particular in Switzerland.
  • In 1985, the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior financed by the Ministry for French Defense resulted in the death of a militant of association Greenpeace, killed during the explosion of the mines placed under the boat. This sabotage aimed at preventing Greenpeace from continuing to penetrate illegally in the French military zone around the sites where were tested the nuclear explosions.

Critics of the antinuclear movement

Holding of nuclear energy estimate that the antinuclear ones give an important priority to the Sortie the civilian nuclear compared to others ecological problems (cf come to power of the Greens to the government in Germany in 2001).

According to Jean-Marc Jancovici, ONG environmental which accept the conclusions of GIEC without discussing them are all about unanimous to refute those of WHO on the consequences of the Catastrophe of Tchernobyl. The conclusions of WHO would be, according to certain interpretations of the agreement between the WHO and the IAEA of 1959, “subjugated” in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

International antinuclear organizations

See too

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