With regard to the second facility being decommissioned at Tricastin, Comurhex 1, ASNR highlights the progress made in removing materials and waste from storage in area 61 following the formal notice issued to the licensee, which should be completed in 2026. ASNR views positively the new approach of establishing interim assessment points to allow close monitoring of decommissioning operations. Individual facility assessments The ASNR assessments of each nuclear facility are detailed in the Regional Overview in this report. CEA Most French nuclear research facilities have been historically operated by the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Although some are still contributing to CEA’s scientific and technical research programmes, a good number of them have been shut down and CEA is faced with major challenges in order to decommission them and manage the legacy waste satisfactorily. ASNR considers that the safety of the facilities operated by CEA is still under control but that the results of the projects to maintain the facilities in operation, as well as projects for decommissioning of shutdown facilities and legacy waste retrieval and conditioning, still differ widely and remain exposed to potential major contingencies. Despite the gradual reinforcement of the project management practices, performance remains limited by the resources available and by the operational capacity of the contractors in the sector. In addition, the operational reality of the worksites is nearly always more complex than anticipated, to the extent that an entire project is sometimes called into question, or at the very least the deadlines are significantly pushed back, a situation that ASNR considers unsatisfactory. In this respect, ASNR considers that schedule compliance remains a point of concern. CEA’s decommissioning and materials and waste management strategy In 2025, in order to keep track of the progress of projects with the highest priority for safety, ASNR and CEA continued the system of regular, high-level reporting of the deadlines with the most significant safety implications. ASNR notes positively the constant commitment of CEA managers to the oversight and monitoring of these milestones, as well as the quality of technical discussions with ASNR, which have been constructive and regular overall. Most of the commitments for submitting files to ASNR were achieved in 2025. ASNR notes, however, that these still mainly concern the submission of files with a limited operational scope. While recourse to this type of commitment may be justified in certain contexts, particularly at the preparation and design stage, ASNR points out that the credibility of the management of decommissioning and legacy waste retrieval and conditioning projects can only be assessed on the basis of the actual execution of these operations. In 2025, CEA continued a number of actions to help reduce the residual risks of certain facilities that have been permanently shut down or are being decommissioned, in particular by continuing work begun in previous years. These actions demonstrate the ability of CEA’s teams to carry out certain complex operations. In particular, ASNR highlights the first transfers of araldited fuel from the Pégase facility to the Cascad facility (within the scope of the DECAP project), the removal of isotope generators stored at BNI 72, and the construction of the equipment needed to treat the soda present in the Phénix facility (BNI 71). ASNR notes, however, that despite this progress, CEA still encountered considerable difficulties in 2025, in simultaneously carrying out all the decommissioning and legacy waste retrieval and conditioning operations, and in meeting the deadlines initially set. The delays observed are notably caused by technical difficulties or contractual constraints with certain contractors. These difficulties are reflected in repeated delays in deadlines, as in the case of the EPOC (BNI 72) and EMC (BNI 166) projects for disposal of highly irradiating legacy waste. ASNR also notes that its alerts regarding certain weaknesses in CEA’s waste and effluent management strategy remain unchanged. CEA is proposing no large-scale measures to safeguard this management, which is to a large extent based on unique facilities, for which there is no operational alternative, and which therefore each determine the satisfactory performance of the numerous projects using them. In this respect, ASNR is particularly attentive to the measures to be put in place by CEA following the civil engineering defects found in 2024 on the waste treatment station (BNI 37-A) located at the Cadarache centre, and to the monitoring of the schedule for commissioning of the new storage capacity required for storage of waste from all CEA centres, in particular the Diadem facility. ASNR also notes that CEA’s annual budget to finance provisions for nuclear costs is limited. In addition, certain key decommissioning and waste retrieval and conditioning operations were subject to a degree of uncertainty in 2025 regarding the availability of the financial resources needed for their execution. ASNR reiterates that CEA must have the necessary means to fulfil all the commitments it has undertaken, where these relate to priority safety issues. 24 ABSTRACTS – ASNR Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2025
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