The French Touch Of The 3s Concept: Reinforcing Bilateral Synergies

The development of the civil nuclear energy was accompanied by the independent development of international legal provisions on, chronologically, nuclear Safeguards, nuclear Safety and nuclear Security. Later, with the maturity of these regimes came a reflexion on the welcomed (and necessary?) synergies and interfaces between them, leading to what is called “the 3S Approach”. As a major Nuclear State with a large number of civilian nuclear facilities licensed from the 1950’s in almost every step of the nuclear fuel cycle, France has built 3 different regulations addressing these topics, based on different concepts, and a clear administrative organization with 3 corresponding different and independent regulatory bodies. Nevertheless, the international debate on the 3S Approach, as well as of course the implementation of the international legal instruments ratified by France in these fields, gave food for thought to the national Authorities. An important reflection work was done to clarify the fundamental principles governing the legal provisions, focusing on the aims and not only on the means. Clear national positions were also established or reaffirmed: France considers that the principles behind each “S” are different and shall remain so; nuclear Security is the exclusive competence of each State; the management of interactions between Safety, Security and Safeguards is the sole responsibility of each State, indeed free to decide how to organize itself. However, at the same time, it should be noted that the domestic regulations addressing each “S” were amended to take into account identified interfaces between Safety and Security and between Security and Safeguards. The involved regulatory bodies have also built new procedures to consult and work together; national coordination, whenever needed, takes place under the responsibility and authority of the Prime Minister, thus ensuring the overall consistency of the State action. This paper will present the French organization and legal framework addressing each “S”, before giving examples of the interfaces and synergies between independent regulations and regulatory bodies. To synthetize the French approach, we will demonstrate that “3S = 2 x 2S”.