Journal of Risk Research Vol. 12, Nos. 7–8, October–December 2009, 941–954 ISSN 1366-9877 print/ISSN 1466-4461 online © 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13669870903126119 http://www.informaworld.com Framing nuclear waste as a political issue in France Yannick Barthe* Centre de sociologie de l’innovation, Ecole des mines de Paris, 75006 Paris, France Taylor and Francis RJRR_A_412784.sgm (Received 14 May 2007; final version received 3 December 2007) 10.1080/13669870903126119 Journal of Risk Research 1366-9877 (print)/1466-4461 (online) Original Article 2009 Taylor & Francis 00 0000002009 YannickBarthe yannick.barthe@ensmp.fr This article analyses the factors that contributed to the political framing of the nuclear waste issue in France. The sudden appearance on the political scene of this issue, addressed behind closed doors and in specialised arenas until the 1990s, generated numerous public debates, parliamentary reports and finally a law. The author critically analyses certain agenda-building theories and then shows that this process of political framing can be comprehended only in relation to the technical problematisation of the issue and the history of the institutions traditionally in charge of it. The orientation towards a political treatment of the problem resulted primarily, albeit partially, from the narrowing down of the technical options for addressing it. Without technical alternatives, the political authorities appeared to be the only way of solving conflicts generated by France’s nuclear waste policy. Keywords: nuclear waste; France; agenda-building; risk regulation; path dependency; decision The histories of public issues are often characterised by alternating eclipses and sudden re-appearances. Many of them follow winding paths on which they are haphazardly placed on and removed from the political agenda, redefined and reformu- lated. Their trajectories tend to be marked by ‘false emergences’. As they noisily burst onto the public scene they briefly activate the political field, before being taken over by ‘harnessing agencies’. These, by re-qualifying them in technical and administrative terms, effectively limit their political interference (Favre 1992). Then comes the time when this harnessing mechanism seems to seize up. The issue is labelled a ‘real social problem’, suddenly receives more attention from political leaders, triggers debate within institutional arenas, and becomes the object of explicitly political action. The case of nuclear waste in France clearly illustrates this type of trajectory. Since the beginning of the nuclear era in France, the issue of the future of these dangerous products – whose radioactivity is in some cases calculated in thousands of years – has constantly been a subject of controversy. Moreover, contrary to common belief, it transcended the confines of scientific conferences and expert committees from the outset, flowing over into the public sphere. The nuclear waste issue was thus national news headlines in 1960 already. At the time, the experiments run by the Commissariat à l’énergie atomique (CEA) with a view to storing containers of radioactive waste under the Mediterranean Sea, generated intense mobilisation among political leaders in Corsica and on the Côte d’Azur. The project was eventually scrapped. In subse- quent decades the issue was repeatedly raised by the anti-nuclear movement which *Email: yannick.barthe@ensmp.fr Downloaded By: [Barthe, Yannick] At: 23:02 20 November 2009