Giscard’s N-plans at risk in election

Press, 20 April 1981, Page 6

Giscard’s N-plans at risk in election

■NZPA-Reuter ‘Ur; Paris’ France’s ambitious .nuclear programme, including a score of new power plants, is at stake in the French presidential election. ‘ ' President Valery Giscard d’Estaing is using his nuclear energy policy in an effort to beat the energy crisis at home and earn billions of dollars for France’s reces-sion-hit economy through sales abroad. He has promised, if elected, to build new nuclear power stations, a policy he says is designed to safeguard

France’s independence as an industrial power. However, the Socialist loader, Francois Mitterrand, the President's closest challenger, has pledged, if elected, to review the entire civil nuclear programme, which he describes as “excessive, even dangerous.” He has also pledged to halt controversial sales of nuclear equipment and fuel to Iraq and other countries in war zones. Mr Mitterrand says he would divert some of the vast investments involved in

France’s nuclear energy programme to energy-saving projects and to a search for new sources of energy if he defeats Mr Giscard in the polling, the decisive round of which is on May 10. The Socialist leader lays special emphasis on reviving the coal industry, France's traditional source of energy until it switched to oil 20 years ago. ■ “The French people should never have allowed the Government to run down the coal mines,” he says.