EDF caught spying on Greenpeace in France

Posted by jamie — 2 April 2009 at 4:16pm - Comments

With echoes of that fantastic/horrifying nuclear thriller Edge Of Darkness (don't wait for the film, see the original TV series), energy giant EDF has been busted for spying on our colleagues at the Greenpeace in France.

Five people have been indicted by the French courts, including two EDF security executives, a computer expert and the head of a private investigation firm. The charge: attempting to hack into Greenpeace computer systems in France.

The story has been covered extensively in the French media and EDF (which is pretty much owned by the French government) is denying the accusations, although the computer expert has already admitted the charge. Pascal Husting, director of Greenpeace France, has spoken of "being treated like terrorists" and points out that to go to such lengths, the nuclear industry must be really, really scared of open debate.

Here in the UK, having recently bought British Energy EDF are hoping to expand their nuclear empire, and has designs on building several new reactors.

They've also been complaining to the government that if we meet our renewable energy targets, particularly with a massive expansion of wind, there will be no room or need for new nuclear power.

As Greenpeace is firmly in favour of cutting-edge renewable energy solutions, and is firmly against a new generation of nuclear installations, could they be doing the same here? A certain amount of interest is to be expected as it kind of comes with the territory, and the expose of Plane Stupid's mole last year is a more extreme (not to mention farcical) example.

Nathan on our nuclear campaign team is pestering EDF to find out if they have any similarly underhand schemes going on in this country. A simple 'no' would suffice, but we're still waiting for an answer...

About Jamie

I'm a forests campaigner working mainly on Indonesia. My personal mumblings can be found @shrinkydinky.

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