Antinuclear

The deal marks the first significant move toward limiting nuclear power in France since it embraced atomic energy after the oil shocks of the 1970s and comes amid growing disquiet here after Japan’s Fukushima atomic disaster in March.

Green party leader Cecile Duflot hailed the opposition deal as a revolution in French thinking on nuclear energy.

“This was a real break with the past and will, in the case of a victory for the left and environmentalists, mark a change in France’s energy policy,” Duflot, the national secretary of the Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) party, said on Canal Plus television…..

The country’s reliance on nuclear energy has been increasingly called into question since the Fukushima disaster, which prompted Germany to announce plans to shut all of its reactors by the end of 2022.

The deal with the Greens is expected to give another boost to Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande, who is leading in the opinion polls against incumbent right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy…..

Green party presidential candidate Eva Joly has denounced claims of hundreds of thousands of job losses as “scandalous lies” and said 600,000 jobs would be created by tapping alternative energy sources like solar and wind power.

Sarkozy has insisted he will continue supporting nuclear energy, saying the Fukushima disaster was “not a nuclear accident, it was an enormous tsunami”…..

France will vote in the first round of a presidential election in April and potentially a second round in May, followed by parliamentary elections in June.