ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the circumstances of the progress. It outlines the highly integrated administrative and industrial structure of nuclear energy production and describes the expansion of the reactor programme and the steps that have been taken to strengthen French control over every other aspect of the fuel cycle. The chapter explains some economic assessments that dull the gloss of the French industry’s pride. It examines the social and political dimensions of the nuclear industry’s expansion. The chapter also considers the tactics which have been adopted to secure the compliance of the mass of ordinary French people and offers some essentially personal observations on the anti-nuclear movement and its apparent impotence in the face of a highly centralised bureaucracy. The massive capitalisation of the programme may be starving industrial development in other fields and increasing the imbalance of French commerce without making significant inroads on imported energy requirements.
