France's government pressed for answers from state electricity giant EDF on Tuesday after a report said the company had been sending spent nuclear fuel from French plants to Siberia.
"I wanted EDF to show transparence on this subject because (it) has indicated that it did not have all the information and that it is up to them to carry out an internal inquiry," French junior environment minister Chantal Jouanno told parliament members.
An Arte television documentary and Liberation newspaper said that hundreds of tonnes of depleted uranium from French power plants have been stored in an open-air complex in Siberia.
The reports said nearly 13 percent of used nuclear fuel from the French plants is sent to the Tomsk-7 complex, and that 108 tonnes of depleted uranium had arrived there each year since the mid-1990s.
EDF said the materials sent to Russia were recyclable and not nuclear waste.
"No EDF nuclear waste is transported to Russia," a spokeswoman for the company said. "Radioactive waste from fuel processing remains in France."
She said it is "only recyclable uranium from fuel processing at EDF nuclear power stations that is transported to Russia to be enriched."
A spokesman for Areva, the French nuclear power group contracted to handle the spent fuel, said it was sent to Russia because the technology to re-enrich it did not exist in France.
But the head of the company contradicted that on French television Tuesday, saying Areva had the technology and would prefer to do the work in France.
The company "is waiting for a contract from EDF" to recycle the material in France, said Areva chief Anne Lauvergeon.
The French state owns around 85 percent of EDF, the world's biggest producer of nuclear energy.
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