Paris - France is gradually abandoning its all-nuclear policy of energy production, the Environment Minister and Greens leader, Ms Dominique Voynet, has said.
Asked by the daily Liberation if France was quietly abandoning nuclear energy in what would be a major shift after more than three decades of pro-nuclear policy, Ms Voynet replied: "France is changing tack, but slowly and carefully."
Around 80 per cent of French energy is supplied by nuclear power and Ms Voynet said she hoped to see its 57 plants, not all of which are operational, successively replaced by non-nuclear and environmentally-friendly sources of energy as they become obsolete.
France opted for all-nuclear energy in the 1960s and since has defended the policy to the hilt, with successive governments coming under pressure only from environmentalists and from the Green movement.