Environmental campaign group Greenpeace hit out at the resumption of nuclear trade between France and Russia during its war with Ukraine after activists observed the loading of a tanker in northern France with reprocessed uranium bound for Russia.
Greenpeace published video that it said its activists shot on Saturday of around 10 containers with radioactive labels going onto a cargo ship in Dunkirk.
The Panamanian-registered ship, the Mikhail Dudin, is regularly used to carry enriched or natural uranium from France to St Petersburg, according to Greenpeace.
Saturday's consignment was the first of reprocessed uranium to be observed for three years, it added.
"The resumption of this trade once again shows France’s dependence on Russia," Pauline Boyer, the head of Greenpeace France's nuclear campaign, told RFI.
The images released by Greenpeace came two days ahead of a meeting in Paris between the French president, Emmanuel Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to discuss Ukraine's air defence systems.
"Despite the French government’s commitments to support Ukraine — which is, fortunately, the case — on the other hand, there is ongoing collaboration with Rosatom, the Russian nuclear company, which is indirectly contributing to the financing of the war."
Rosatom has occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant for more than three and a half years.
"It has made itself complicit in crimes committed with the Russian army against the nuclear plant’s employees," Boyer added.
"It is outrageous that French nuclear companies — EDF, Orano, Framatome — continue to collaborate with Rosatom."
Greenpeace cries scandal as France continues to import Russian uranium
French state-controlled energy giant Electricité de France (EDF) signed a 600-million-euro deal in 2018 with a Rosatom subsidiary, Tenex, for the recycling of reprocessed uranium.
These operations have not been affected by international sanctions over the Ukraine war.
Rosatom has the only facility in the world - at Seversk in Siberia - capable of carrying out key parts of the conversion of reprocessed uranium to enriched reprocessed uranium.
Uranium can be reprocessed so it can be reenriched and reused. With uranium prices rising again on international markets, it is increasingly worthwhile for power companies to seek reprocessing of spent fuel.
Only about 10 percent of the reenriched uranium sent back to France by Russia is used at its Cruas nuclear power plant, in southern France, the only one in the country that can use enriched reprocessed uranium, according to Greenpeace.
Macron hopes trip to former Soviet states will secure uranium, counter Russia
France's energy ministry and EDF have yet to respond publicly to questions on the consignment or trade.
Top politicians in France ordered EDF chiefs to halt uranium trade with Rosatom in 2022 when Greenpeace France revealed the contracts in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
France said in March 2024 that it was considering the possibility of building its own conversion facility to produce enriched reprocessed uranium.
