France urged international financial bodies to finance a new era of global nuclear power on Monday and pitched its own reactor technology as the model to follow.
Welcoming delegates from 60 nations to a conference in Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said civil nuclear power had been unfairly passed over for World Bank development loans.
He called on world and regional financial bodies to finance new nuclear projects in developing countries, and announced that France would set up an international institute to promote atomic technology.
“I can’t understand why nuclear power is ostracized by international finance, it’s the stuff of scandal,” he said, urging the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and others to do more.
While Paris insists the two-day conference is not a trade show for French reactors, Sarkozy made it clear he expects France to play a leading role in the spread of nuclear technology.
In a speech hosted by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Sarkozy announced a new body to group “France’s best teachers and researchers” in nuclear technology.
“I have decided to change up a gear by creating an International Institute of Nuclear Energy that will include an international nuclear school,” he said.
He said the French school would become the heart of an international network of institutes, beginning with a centre in Jordan.
“Other centers of nuclear training will be developed with French support, such as the French-Chinese nuclear energy institute, in cooperation with Guangzhou University,” he said.
-AFP/NOW Lebanon
via http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=151807
