French Nuclear Reactor Hit by Protest Missiles

Shortly before midnight on January 18, several missiles were fired at the fast breeder nuclear reactor, known as Superphenix, under construction near Creys-Malville, France (30 miles west of Lyon). There were no injuries reported but the attack left a 14 inch deep hole in the reactor's three and a half foot thick concrete containment wall.

At least five missiles, Soviet made models from the sixties, were fired at the plant, and full details of damage done were not made public by the French authorities. However, an anonymous phone caller told Agence France Presse on January 19 that the attack was the work of a pacifist-ecologist who took precautions to avoid injuring any plant personnel. The caller later asserted that one of the missiles hit either the dome or another vital part of the reactor and that "this will cause extensive delays in construction [which] was our objective. We did not do something spectacular for the spectacle, but to slow down construcion of this monstrous object, to make people think, and to relaunch the nuclear debate in France."

The Superphenix is a sodium-cooled, fast breeder reactor with a planned capacity of 1240 megawatts - the largest of its type in the world. Construction of the plant was begun in 1978 by Central Nucleaire Europeene a Neutrons Rapides S.A., whose shareholders include French, Italian, German, Dutch, Belgian and British-owned firms. Superphenix, which is scheduled to commence operating in early 1984, is located in a densely populated region of France near the cities of Lyon, Grenoble, and Geneva (Switzerland).

The Socialist government of French President Francois Mitterrand has announced that a commission will be established to investigate the incident. A group which has been coordinating widespread local opposition to the project, the Association of the Region of Malville Opposed to the Superphenix (ARMOS), claims that, while the group does not advocate such a form of protest, the "despair" which motivated the perpetrators was the result "of deception and bitterness created by the government which has broken its promises" to halt the fast breeder program.

- Report by World Information Service on Energy (WISE), in Amsterdam