In the end of 1996, ANDRA (National Agency for Nuclear Waste Management) applied for a building permit
to build and run 3 underground research laboratories.
One of the sites suggested by ANDRA is located in eastern France, at the frontier of Meuse and Haute-Marne.
Those two departments were both willing and geologically favourable for the implantation of a laboratory.
The geological surveying work made by ANDRA from '94 to '96
allowed to narrow down the research area to the municipality of Bure, in Meuse department.
They did not all agree.
Here when we want to hide something, we dig a hole in the ground and put whatever we want to hide in it and we cover it up.
That's what's happening with this issue.
I can't stand ANDRA
You can say whatever you want, you can even give out my name
You want my ID card? I don't care!
If it could create jobs which we don't have…
It could bring people here, like American scientists who would work here,
bring their families… They will need to live here, it'll revive shops, etc.
Let's look ahead into the future.
We're heading to the reception building.
In this area, the public will have access information about ANDRA and its research projects.
Let's head now towards the access point to the laboratory's underground installations.
We're now in the elevator that will lead us into the core of the rock.
Winter '94 - Southern Meuse Geophysical trials
The burial of nuclear wastes which lifespan is several millions years is nonsense.
The storage of these wastes on the surface would at least allows to be able to keep an eye on them
and potentially be able to reprocess them in the future.
They're not any kind of nuclear waste, they're the most dangerous.
I think it's good news for Meuse and Haute-Marne departments
because the application we started shows it's well-established,
arguments are excellent, and it carries with it
big hopes for this department in dire need.
It's not over, we'll be back.
We're worried. We don't want this laboratory because we don't want to eventually bury their nuclear waste.
They jeopardize the earth wherein we have our roots
and they want to put shit inside for the generations to come.
We feel it's a bit shady, we are not told everything.
Worksite not allowed to the public
We're convinced that a laboratory is the only solution to take care of these “oh so” worrying wastes that represents the nuclear wastes today.
They arrived here with our elected representatives welcoming them with open arms,
from then on, it was over, everything was settled.
Everything has been signed, sealed and delivered since the very first day.
Southern Meuse - 1994 First drillings
We are very serious people
the scientists, including the National Committee of Assessment,
and everyone which we'll consult in the next few months years
are here to demonstrate the very rigorous and strong nature
of the technological and scientific researches
and the democratic nature of the law written by Mr. Bataille.
ANDRA, corruption, ANDRA, corruption
THE LAB SHALL NOT PASS
These works are illegal since the article 6. says that no preliminary work can start before
a consultation of the population.
Yet, Morlaix's drilling
is called "preliminary works" by both ANDRA
and Meuse's prefect.
No consultation whatsoever has been made beforehand.
In this respect, the drillings are illegal.
The end of it all is definitely the burial.
Even a superficial analysis
directly leads to this conclusion.
They don't have any solution.
In La Hague (Normandy), they managed to pollute 140 meters underground
to the sea over 5 kilometres long.
In Soulaines (Aube), the waste storage area is built on one of our best acquiferous (water-bearing) zone
where we were supposed to bottle the water in Eclaron, a nearby village located 25 km away.
Today in 1996, it already leaks from everywhere.
No matter how you look at it, the law hasn't been respect. First off, the population hasn't been informed
and then it hasn't been consulted.
"Meuse is not a dustbin!"
It's been two years since they started to lull us and to tell us stories.
Sometimes they even try to bribe us.
The population is starting to realise that the project is imposed upon them against their will.
There are 75.000 people who have signed a petition against this project.
For the last two years, 200 people have been digging to study the underground geology
A titanic work that only progresses meter by meter because
after each explosion, once the soil is evacuated,
the work stops for a few hours to allow
the scientists to go down to study the walls
These paintings drawn 160 meters under the surface
enable to locate the defects and flaws of the rocks.
Our role now is to spread the information we have been collecting for the last 3 years as widely as possible.
ANDRA dispenses one kind of info, we dispense another kind,
collected from scientists or independent organizations,
such as the Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity, which cast a different light on the nuclear world.
We attempt to inform the population
To counteract the misinformation campaign that started two years ago about this laboratory,
which is the antechamber of a nuclear dump.
We need to relay the information as widely as we can, by all means.
"I have been the Mayor of Fontaines-sur-Marne for 18 years and I'm left-wing, really really far on the left!"
"Hello, what are your current positions about the lab?"
"Listen, miss, if you have read my prose…"
"You're betraying us! We'll have poisoned soil!"
"I already wrote what I thought about it during my campaign"
"Bastard!"
"Bastards!" We're your electors! We're your citizens!"
"Betrayal, treason!"
We're not discouraged, we are organising a big first action before the district and the regional elections
because we believe that the decision also belongs to the political power in place
We will also be planning a big gathering after these regional elections,
In the spring, which will probably take place on the east site
in which will partake any citizen and every local, national and global organization
We need to keep in mind that it's the responsibility of the people in power
If we take these decisions lightly, there is no turning back.
He's hitting me!
You don't have to hit us! I've done nothing wrong.
"Goddamn, look at what you're doing!"
Yeah, yeah, yeah, take it easy,
he fell on his own…
What happens to the Earth happens to the Sons and Daughters of the Earth.
Chernobyl, Windscale, Nagasaki, Hiroshima...
The unthinkable contribution linked to the nuclear waste business,
Soulaines is here indeed…
The future generations will need to be aware of its eternal toxicity while the current generation will ignore it until it is completely forgotten.
Handford, Cadarache, Valduc, Soulaines, Saint-Laurent-des-Eaux...
Temporary offices
Public reception desk
Guardroom
Offices
Stormwater basin
Lockers
Access well
Auxiliary well
Core sample archives
No reason to worry
Being the specialist of nuclear waste reprocessing, France might become Europe's garbage dump.
You are on a rolling plateau, with beautiful forests, and there are 6 people per kilometre square.
The exact reason of the future arrival of the laboratory in Bure,
is supposed to be the geological situation,
but the more we study and analyse the findings,
the bigger the doubts about the geological quality to contain the radionuclide we want to bury
"No reason to worry." "Everything's fine."
This afternoon, we'll have conferences about this fake laboratory,
about renewable energies,
and tonight at 6.00, we welcome the marchers who walked 700 km from the prehistoric caves of Lascaux in Dordogne
distributing information leaflet in each stopover city.
For us, it is a very important moment.
I came from Lascaux towards Bure for a 700km walk
We've done 690 kilometres so far
If Lascaux men had left plutonium in their caves instead of painting them,
14.000 years later the plutonium would have only lost a quarter of its radioactivity.
It gives better idea of what we're about to hand down to the thousands of future generations
for thirty years of small and selfish electrical comfort.
What motivated me to come from Nice is a UN report saying that nuclear wastes is the main issue of the 21st century,
so we need to get our act together.
"I'm a research engineer and I call to bring
my full support against the burial of nuclear waste.
It's scientifically proven that the deep burying is in fact irreversible.
And it is utterly unacceptable
I came from Britain to Bure,
I've already spent a month here last year, I want to give my full support,
because what's happening here is shameful and the pressure from the police is pathetic
It proves that the nuclear world is incompatible with democracy
We're from Saarbrücken and Trier and some other countries
and we feel it's important to show our solidarity with Bure
A clear mind is a mind that can tell real issues apart from unimportant ones.
This clear mind has one real tool to express itself and it is democracy.
It belongs to us. We locals have an important role to play.
The whole country is watching us.
The more we act, the more support we’ll have.
The thesis that I defend and that I believe a lot of people defend too is that
if we applied to the nuclear industry norms that would actually protect the population,
the nuclear industry would be far too expensive to be run efficiently
So, if there is an area where we cannot put the precautionary principle into practice – this principle that is acknowledged and applied in every national and international legislation today -
which states "we can't start an activity
which provokes irreversible or serious risks for people or the environment"
What doesn't exist in France, Belgium or Germany is
epidemiological studies on nuclear sites. It doesn't exist.
Let's throw some numbers in: 6 cancer categories before 1986,
now there are 11.
If there are no tool to evaluate cancer progression,
then it's a case of "not seen, not caught" policy.
We don't measure anything, therefore there is nothing.
I don't think the 1991 bill was written by deputy Christian Bataille,
I don't even know whether he can write.
If he did write it, the nuclear lobby was holding the pen for him.
This law is the opposite of democracy.
It's a sneaky presentation leading up to our current situation.
Today even though the form has changed, the content hasn't.
There's a real incompatibility between democracy and nuclear industry,
i.e the Government and the Assembly under its thumb,
do not respect the letter of the law.
"No, no, no the burying! Yes, yes, yes to the nuclear exit!"
"Nuclear wastes kill the future"
Voted in June 2006, a new bill from the French Parliament plans the waste burying in Bure,
carefully avoiding any consultation of the local population.
2015: the greenlight is given for the burial of nuclear waste.
2025: first waste barrel should be arriving
Despite their insistent request through massive petitioning,
50.000 voters are still waiting to be consulted on the Bure situation.
Around ANDRA area, opponents are still fighting.
Infos on: http://burestop.free.fr
Most pictures and sound recordings found in this movie are from news reports shot by French television.