LES ACTIVITÉS NUCLÉAIRES : RAYONNEMENTS IONISANTS ET RISQUES POUR LA SANTÉ ET L’ENVIRONNEMENT for approval of nuclear material shipments, for supervising these shipments and for notifying the authorities of any alerts concerning them. This security mission is defined by the Order of 28 February 2023 relative to the security of transport of nuclear materials, implementing Articles R. 1333-4 and R. 1333-17 to R. 1333-19 of the Defence Code. Thus, prior to any transport operation, the Defence Code obliges the carriers to obtain a transport authorisation. The EOT reviews the corresponding application files. This review consists in checking the conformity of the intended provisions with the requirements defined by the Defence Code and the above-mentioned Order of 28 August 2023. Pursuant to Article R. 1333-146 of the Public Health Code, on 28 March 2025 the ASNR Commission adopted resolution 2025DC-011, introducing, with effect from 1 January 2026, a requirement for companies transporting radioactive substances within France to either declare such transport or obtain authorisation. This resolution introduces a licensing system for any road transport on public roads of High Activity Sealed Sources (HASS) or batches of sources in categories A to C, which constitutes a stricter framework than the one that was still in force until 31 December 2025 (ASN resolution 2015-DC-0503 of 12 March 2015). It also introduces an obligation for all licence holders or declarants to submit information to ASNR by 30 April of each year at the latest, regarding transport operations carried out in the previous year. This information is intended to enable ASNR to target the companies to be inspected as part of an approach proportionate to the issues at stake. With regard to grandfathering, transport operation managers who had declared their transport operations pursuant to ASN’s 2015 resolution, while remaining subject to the notification system defined by the new resolution, will continue to benefit from the effects of this declaration after 31 December 2025. At the end of 2025, ASNR issued the first authorisations for carriers. 3.3 Regulation of the transport of dangerous goods Regulation of the transport of dangerous goods is the responsibility of the Dangerous Materials Transport Commission (MTMD) of the Ministry responsible for the environment. This structure is tasked with measures relative to the safe transport of dangerous goods other than class 7 (radioactive) by road, rail and inland waterways. It has a consultative body (standing sub-committee in charge of dangerous goods transport, within the High Council for the Prevention of Technological Risks – CSPRT), that is consulted for its opinion on any draft regulations relative to the transport of dangerous goods by rail, road or inland waterway. Inspections are carried out by land transport inspectors attached to the Regional Directorates for the Environment, Planning and Housing. For the regulation of dangerous goods to be as consistent as possible, ASNR collaborates regularly with the administrations concerned. The breakdown of the various inspection duties is summarized in Table 3. 4 – ASNR action in the transport of radioactive substances 4.1 Issuance of approval certificates and shipment approvals The type B and C packages, as well as the packages containing fissile materials and those containing more than 0.1 kilograms of UF6 must be have an ASNR approval certificate in order to be used for transportation. The designers of the package models who request approval from ASNR must support their application with a safety case demonstrating the compliance of their package with all the regulatory requirements. Before deciding whether or not to issue an approval certificate, ASNR reviews these safety cases, seeking as necessary an opinion from its Nuclear Safety Expert Assessment Department, in order to ensure that the safety cases are pertinent and conclusive. If necessary, the approval certificate is issued with requests to improve specific items in the safety case. In some cases, the opinion from ASNR's Nuclear Safety Expert Assessment Department may be supplemented by a meeting of the Advisory Committee of Experts for Transport of Radioactive Substances (GPT). The opinions of the Advisory Committees of Experts (GPEs) are published on asnr.fr. The approval certificate specifies the conditions for the manufacture, utilisation and maintenance of the transport package. It is issued for a package model, independently of the actual shipment itself, for which no prior ASNR opinion is generally required. This shipment may however be subject to security constraints (physical protection of the materials against malicious acts under the supervision of the HFDS of the Ministry for the Environment). These approval certificates are usually issued for a period of five years. If a package is unable to meet all the regulatory requirements, the regulations nonetheless allow for its transport by means of a shipment under special arrangement. The consignor must then define compensatory measures to ensure a level of safety equivalent to that which would have been obtained had the regulatory requirements been met. For example, if it cannot be completely demonstrated that a package is able to withstand the 9 metres drop, a compensatory measure may be to reduce the speed of the vehicle, have it escorted and choose a route avoiding such a drop height. The probability of a serious accident, and therefore of a violent shock on the package, is thus considerably reduced. A shipment under special arrangement is only possible with the approval of the competent authority, which then issues approval for shipment under special arrangement, stipulating the compensatory measures to be applied. In the case of certificates issued abroad, the international regulations provide for their recognition by ASNR. In certain cases, this recognition is automatic and the foreign certificate is directly valid in France. In other cases, the foreign certificate is only valid if endorsed by ASNR, which then issues a new certificate. In 2025, 20 approval applications were submitted to ASNR by the manufacturers. ASNR delivered 36 approval certificates or shipment approvals, for which the breakdown by type is shown in Graph 2. The nature of the shipments and packages covered by these certificates is shown in Graph 3. 4.2 Monitoring all the stages in the life of a package ASNR performs inspections at all stages in the life of a package, from manufacture and maintenance through to package preparation, carriage and reception. In 2025, ASNR carried out 111 inspections in the field of radioactive substances transport (all sectors considered). The follow-up letters to these inspections are available on asnr.fr. Since 2023 and twice a year, ASNR publishes the applicable list of package model approval certificates that it has issued, on its website. ASNR Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2025 271 01 05 02 06 03 07 04 09 10 11 13 08 12 A / Z
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