The day after the adoption of the pension reform in France, the National Assembly is expected to approve in first reading the Nuclear Industry Renewal Bill which fell victim to a controversial nuclear safety reform.

The vote is scheduled for the afternoon after the session of questions to the government. And there are no doubts about passing the bill, which is expected to be supported by MPs from the traditional right-wing Les Républicains party, the far-right National Alarm and some communists.

The meeting comes a day after the parliamentary battle ended with the automatic adoption of the pension reform by rejecting two motions of censure against the government with a majority of just nine MPs

Technically, the nuclear energy bill narrows the prescribed procedures and deadlines to advance the implementation of President Emmanuel Macron’s promise of construction of six new EPR reactors by 2035 and to initiate studies for eight additional reactors.

The bill has already secured broad support in the Senate at the end of January. After today’s vote in the National Assembly in the first reading, the parliamentary course of the bill will continue.

Against fossil fuel energy, “the acceleration of renewables is ecological. The renewal of our nuclear industry is ecological,” Energy Transition Minister Anies Panier-Runasser said at the start of the debate last week.

In the midst of an energy crisis, the majority of the French National Assembly supports nuclear power in the context of decarbonisation and as a pillar of “sovereignty”.

In the wake of the debate in the Senate, the National Assembly scrapped the target of reducing nuclear power’s share of the French electricity mix to 50% by 2035, a limit introduced under Francois Hollande’s presidency.

Agniesz Panier-Rounasseur wants “neither a ceiling nor a floor” on the issue, while nuclear energy normally accounts for around 70% of France’s electricity generation, but only 63% in 2022 due to series outages of reactors due to wear.

Amid protests from the left who fear it is putting a damper on anti-nuclear activism, lawmakers approved tougher penalties for trespassing at nuclear power plants.

On the contrary, the government was defeated on the issue of the nuclear safety reform plan, which became the subject of sharp criticism even within the ruling majority.

The French government sought the absorption of the Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire, IRSN, technical expertise) by the Nuclear Safety Authority (Autorité de sûreté nucléaire, ASN), the nuclear power plant regulator. But the MPs voted in favor of maintaining the current status quo.

However, it is expected that the government will not give up the effort and it is likely that it will bring the issue back to the table during the parliamentary passage of the bill.