Statement by Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK
"No amount of talking up of the French nuclear industry by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy will cover up the fact that the economics of new nuclear reactors don't stack up. The track record of EDF in building new nuclear power stations on time and to budget is appalling. Recently the independent risk agency Standard and Poor downgraded EDF’s creditworthiness. All this came just a few months after a French judge sentenced a number of EDF senior executives to prison for unscrupulous acts of spying. French nuclear power is no longer popular even in France.
So instead of using UK taxpayers' money to prop up failing French industries, David Cameron should follow the lead of Germany and concentrate on securing vast numbers of jobs and economic growth in the rapidly expanding clean energy industries such as wind and solar power."
