Working paper by Marie Onga of International Project ...intl.civil.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/docs/wpaper/Onga_en111118.pdf · Recognizing the disastrous situation that emerged in 1990, then

Working paper by Marie Onga of International Project Laboratory (Last modified November 18, 2011)

Title: Attitude Formation towards Dispute over High-Level Radioactive Waste Repository in France

Marie Onga, Shunsaku Komatsuzaki and Hideyuki Horii (The University of Tokyo)

E-mail: [email protected]

1. Introduction 1.1 Overview

The issue of High-Level Radioactive Waste (HLW) management has not only been a technical issue, but also a large socio-political issue for many countries in the world. Underground repositories are internationally and technically considered adequate as a method for disposal of HLW. However, most countries working on HLW management have not yet sited the underground repository successfully. For example, in Japan, the first application for literature survey on its underground geology was submitted by the town of Toyo-cho in Kōchi Prefecture, in 2007. Due to strong public opposition, the mayor of the town was resigned and the application for the survey was withdrawn. Since then, no municipality has submitted an application for HLW repository siting survey and the progress on selecting the site can be hardly seen in Japan. In the United States, Yucca Mountain was once officially announced to become a repository site for HLW in June 2008, but this decision was withdrawn by the Obama administration in Feb 2009, concerning its unsolved socio-political controversies.

Considering such situations in many parts of the world, current HLW management should be improved based on lessons learned from the past especially with regard to building consensuses on the matter of repository siting. Thus, this research chose to analyze the case of France, since it seems to be an interesting case to learn lessons from, where the HLW underground laboratory was sited in Bure, Meuse Department (and Haute-Marne Department), despite the suspension of a HLW repository siting project experienced previously in 1980s resulting from strong national public opposition.

With the new French law1 instituted in 2006, the government decided to establish an actual HLW underground repository site by 2026. Considering how the case in France poses numerous lessons for future siting projects, the research presented in this paper aims at clarifying and analyzing the political process of the HLW repository siting project in France in order to explain why and how the project moved forward or why it did not within the country. By conducting interviews with people concerned in the project, the present research has focused especially on seeking an explanation for the attitude formation amongst local people, which have had a significant influence on the result of the HLW project in France. The present analysis contributes to a greater understanding of the case in France and ultimately presents suggestions for other countries, in addition to some other lessons drawn from previous studies on France’s management of nuclear waste. (Barthe and Mays, 2001; Barthe, 2009; Mays, 2004)

The interview results and the literature survey suggest that there were two steps in the formation of people’s attitudes towards the HLW repository siting project: emotional and reasoned one. Each step consisted of a certain set of influential factors identified through interviews that affected one’s attitude. If one goes through the emotional step negatively, it cannot move to the next, reasoned step of attitude formation to potentially form a non-negative attitude towards the project, interpreted as a non- opposition. Proposing such a new model of attitude formation, the author will first show how we can indeed explain what was happening in the case of

1 Loi (Law) n°2006-739 du 28 juin 2006 de programme relative à la gestion des matières et déchets radioactifs; “ Law dated June 28th 2006, on the management of radioactive waste.”


France and, second, consider the application of the model for future analysis of other cases in order to practically use the lessons learned in this research.

1.2 Background History

From 1988 to 1989, four sites2 had been selected as HLW repository candidate sites by ANDRA (Agence nationale pour la gestion des déchets radioactifs), the agency responsible for the management of radioactive waste repository in France. However, after the official announcement made by the government in 1987, to start the detail surveys , strong public opposition against the HLW repository siting emerged at all four sites and across the country.

Recognizing the disastrous situation that emerged in 1990, then Prime Minister Michel Rocald decided to suspend the project for at least a year. Meanwhile, Member of Parliament (MP) Bataille was asked to conduct the survey to seek the reasons for such a strong public opposition and to make suggestions for the next step on HLW management. According to the hearings conducted by MP Bataille to different actors, the report3 identified the concerns of people was submitted to the Government.

Based on this report, first Waste Research Law, the so-called Battaille Law was instituted in 1991. It stated that the research on underground repository, transformation, and long-term storage of HLW would be conducted in the following years and the new law for the actual implementation of radioactive waste management should be proposed in next 15 years. It additionally stated that several laboratories should be established for the underground repository and that all the procedures should be transparent and democratic.

Following the Bataille law, national consultation activities led by MP Bataille were held to find the underground laboratory site for HLW, but on the will of each local municipality. The consultation team opened any information inquired after by locals and discussed these in detail with the locals. As an incentive for locals to accept the laboratory, five million francs per year were promised to the local area if the area were to become a candidate site, and sixty million francs per year if a laboratory were constructed and operated. The expectation was that there would be an increase in local employment and education facilities to come along the laboratory as well. Twenty-eight districts showed their interest of becoming the candidate site, and among them, eight were chosen from the geological point of view to have detailed hearings. MP Bataille reported the result of those hearings showing some concerns and conditions that needed to be secured in order to proceed with the project, such as information transparency, economic benefits, and future generation’s right to decide.

After receiving this report, the government decided upon four Departments (or municipalities); Gard, Vienna, Meuse, and Haute-Marne, to become the final candidate sites for laboratory. These four sites were the ones that seemed to have more local agreements and understandings about the siting project. In 1996, a final consultation with local assembly members and residents was held. Based on the result of consultation and voting done by local assembly members in each area, the Government finally decided to place the HLW underground laboratory in Bure, dismissing the other two department areas, in 1998. The communes around

2 Those four sites are Neuvy-Boui with granite, Sissonnne North with clay, around Ain with salt, and Segre with shale. 3 “Rapport sur la gestion des déchets nucleaires haute activité”, Can be retrieved from http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/10/dossiers/962689.asp


Bure, in Meuse and Haute-Marne Department mostly agreed with the project under the condition of the reversibility concept4.

On the other hand, the mission started to find a second laboratory site in a granite stratus by the Government in 1998 (the so-called Granite Mission) proved difficult, whereas Bure had already begun its construction of the laboratory. The Granite Mission was conducted merely from a technical point of view, just as in 1980s, and several candidate sites were already selected without any discussion with locals. Local consultations were made only with those pre-selected areas. What made the situation worse was the leakage of information of the pre-selected areas before the official announcement was made, which led to some disorder and conflicts amongst the ministries and political parties. All of this led to strong national-wide opposition against the project and the Granite Mission was cancelled.

Meanwhile, the operation of research in Bure went on. Based on its research results conducted by ANDRA, a new law was instituted in 2006, initiated by MP Birraux. This was the law promised by the Bataille law in 1991 to make the government decide next steps regarding radioactive waste management by 2006. The 2006 law stated that the reversible underground repository would be the decided method for HLW management in France, while research on other options would be continued. This meant an actual HLW underground

repository site in 250 ㎢ would be developed near Bure by 2025.

2. Research Methods 2.1 Procedure and Concepts

In order to understand the process of High-Level Radioactive Waste disposal siting, including that of underground laboratory, in France from 1980s to 2009 in details, the author relied primarily on semi-structured interviews to people involved and on reviews of the documents regarding the case of France. The model of local people’s attitude formation towards the radioactive waste repository siting project, then, was developed in the research based on those findings and analysis from the interviews.

Semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders were held in Bure and Paris, France in July and September 2009. Interviewees totaled 19 individuals who were mainly led to recall what happened at the time and how they felt and thought towards the event and towards other stakeholders. Since the author was interested in the detailed process of the case from each person’s point of view and attitude formation of local people as well as intentions of different actors involved in the HLW underground laboratory siting, semi-structured interviews were found to be adequate. It was flexible enough to allow interviewees to express their feelings and thoughts as they remember, while asking questions that allows the author to see the differences between various actors. Those individuals included 15 males and 4 females, mostly over age 40. Even though individual interviewees are kept anonyms here in the paper, more details of institutions interviewed are described in the next section.

Reviewing of the interview notes allowed author to identify some statements that were important for the overall project to proceed or local people to form their different attitudes towards the project (Sato, 2008). Those statements were coded into several groups of, namely, Influential Factors (IFs). Each IFs have several

4 Its concept was intended to give flexibility to the decision making on HLW repository or research, by potentially allowing decisions made to be dismissed politically, socially, and technically. Its details and how it can be accomplished had not been clarified or decided yet, and it is still under the study and the discussion among stakeholders, such as ANDRA and local residents. For example, some information on “reversibility” can be retrieved from ANDRA webpage; http://www.andra.fr/andra-meusehautemarne/pages/fr/menu18/le-projet-de-stockage/la-reversibilite-6623.html.


statements from different interviewees that support it as an important factors that affected the attitude formation of local people towards the siting project, which sways the result of the facility siting.

The facility siting project would not proceed if a strong public opposition occurs at the site, as seen in the case of 1980s in France. Considering such an aspect of the siting project, authors focused on analyzing the people’s attitude formation based on the result of interviews. Why and how the result of French case happened were then explained using the framework of the model proposed.

Social acceptance is crucial for the accomplishment of radioactive waste repository siting. Various researches have been conducted to understand why people accept or reject these projects, for example, in United States (Slovic et al., 1991; Kunreuther et al., 1990), Sweden (Lidskog and Sundqvist, 2004; Sjöberg, 2009), and Korea (Chung et al, 2008), to name a few. Throughout these researches, the factors affecting public acceptance on radioactive waste repository siting have been identified, such as a perception of risk, trust, fairness, and economic benefits. (Pescatore and Vari, 2006; Pijawka ad Mysgjate, 1991; Chung and Kim, 2009; IAEA 2007) Studies on public attitudes toward other waste facility sitings around the world, such as landfills and incineration for example (Ferreira and Gallagher, 2010; Joos, et al., 1999; Lober, 1995), have also been conducted, showing the importance of similar factors noted above.

Barthe (2009) analyzed how the political framing of the nuclear waste issue in France occurred by following its case process. It also emphasized the new concept of decision-making approach initiated by the law instituted in 1991, which might be suitable when decision makers have to find a way to decide without making a definitive decision. Barthe and Mays (2001) also followed the detailed process of searching the site for the underground HLW laboratory between 1996 and 1997, analyzing especially on public communications. It pointed out the effectiveness of implementation agency’s public information practices as well as unforeseen effects of communication held by local information commissions. These are the major academic papers that dealt with the French case. The author’s analysis newly shed the light on the case of France by clarifying what aspects of each event determined the local people’s attitude towards the project and swayed its result from 1980s up to recent throughout.

These researches on social acceptance can be largely categorized into two (Jobert et al., 2007, Komatsuzaki e al., 2009), i) the research that statistically seeks the motivation or attitude of local people from questionnaires and public-opinion polls, and (ii) the research analyzing how and why the project is implemented or understood by people, by tracing the procedure of the implemented policy and activities. This research takes the latter approach, clarifying the case through interviews conducted to people concerned. It was decided to be adequate especially in order to understand in details why and how the French siting project proceeded.

From interviews conducted in the research, attitude formation of people seemed to have largely influenced the procedure and the result of the case. Study of persuasion gives important implications as the part of attitude change and formation studies. Recently, research focusing on the process of the persuasion has been emphasized especially in the field of attitude change study. (Ito and Okamoto, 2000; Chaiken et al., 1996) The dual process model of persuasion gives a basic understanding of the cause-effect processes of attitude change. (Crano and Prislin, 2006) Their model tries to explain the process of persuasion with two different processes; high-elaboration and low-elaboration one. Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Caccioppo, 1983) and Heuristic-Systematic Model (Chaiken, 1980) are the two existing dual process models. On the other hand, Kruglanski and colleagues have challenged the dual-process view in their unimodel, which accepts the importance of motivation and ability in persuasion, but describes a single cognitive process that accounts for the effects of source and message in persuasion. (Crano and Prislin, 2006)


Even though these models take an information processing approach, “emotion” also started to be focused in social cognition research. Fabrigar and Petty (1999) found that affective persuasion was more effective in changing attitudes than attitudes derived from cognitions, but the obverse, that cognitive persuasion was more effective in changing attitudes derived from cognitions, was not supported.

Some research also emphasized the role of emotion in brain science. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio presented the somatic maker hypothesis that insists the necessity and importance of emotion for reasonable decision-making. (Damasio, 1994, Bechara, 2004)

The author found the importance of local people’s attitude in the process of siting HLW facilities that was explained in two steps; emotional and reasoned, and also found factors that specifically affect each step. Many of these findings seem to be partly supported by above literatures as well. By having detailed interviews to key stakeholders, this research made it possible to newly explain what happened in French siting projects by understanding how local people’s attitude formation seemed to be built.

2.2 Interviewees

Interviewees included: the director of GIP (Groupement d'Intérêt Public) Meuse; protesters met in front of GIP

office; local residents in CLIS (Comite Local d’Information et de Suivi) living around Bure, different

personnel from ANDRA, the mayor of Bure, member of CNDP (Commission nationale du débat public); a member of Parliament/Senate from OPECST (Office parlementaire des choix scientifiques et technologiques) who worked on the enactment of the law 2006, the president of WISE-Paris (NGO); a researcher in sociology well acquainted with the case. The following are brief explanations of each actor or agency.

GIP Meuse is the public institution responsible for evaluating the project requested by any entity or person to be funded by the found acquired by siting the HLW underground research center. They provide the fund to projects which are acknowledged as possible to contribute to local development. Its role is stated in both laws instituted in 1991 and 2006. Such a fund that each GIP in the area of HLW underground research center and disposal sites receives is paid by the nation, using the tax revenue associated with nuclear energy in the country.

CLIS consists of members from different groups, such as from national assembly, ANDRA, local municipalities, workers groups, and environmentalist group. It aims to provide the information about research center and radioactive waste repository to local residents.

ANDRA is the independent implementation agency responsible for radioactive waste management, especially on technical aspects. CNDP is the independent administrative agency responsible for holding public meetings when asked by the government or a project promoter. OPECST is the office set under the Senate of France to collect necessary information and conduct evaluations on technical and scientific issues for political decision-making.

WISE-Paris is the NGO (Non-Governmental Organization), which aims to provide trustable information on French energy policy, especially that of nuclear energy, to people in France.

3. Local People’s Attitude Formation Model


The factors that substantially influenced the result of siting project and a formation of local people’s attitude were identified from the statements in the interview. Those factors are called “Influential Factors (IFs)” in this paper, abstracted by grouping similar implications from different interviewees. These IFs seemed to play various roles in the attitude formation of people concerned. Even though issues such as political situations in the country or trends of national public opinion matter for the project’s result, the study found that the local people’s attitude formation is the substantial part of the issue that has a considerable impact on the project. It was observed that once the strong opposition starts taking place in the local area, the project would not be able to proceed and it is important to understand those people’s attitudes when conducting siting projects. Thus, the attitude formation of local people is the focus of analysis in this research.

From the case study, it is clear that each IF, explained in details in the next section, has an influence on people’s attitude formation in different level and in various extents. Thus, using IFs identified, the attitude formation model of local people concerned is proposed here to have it as the basis for understanding consequences of IFs in people’s attitude formation.

3.1 Model Proposed

From the interviews, two types of attitudes were found, namely emotional and reasoned. Reasoned step of attitude formation includes how one judges or recognizes its safety as well as the benefit, for example. On the other hand, emotional attitude formation would include having fear, anger, or feeling of unfairness. It seems that if one cannot emotionally accept the project, he/she would not accept to even start discussing about the project. If the overall case of France is re-examined from the interview results, it is hard to explain one’s attitude by assuming that both emotional and reasoned attitude formations are taking place together in every situation. Instead, it seems that one has to go over emotional attitude formation in a positive way first in order to have reasoned attitude formation and possibly become not to oppose to the project. Based on such an examination of the case, a model of people’s attitude formation was proposed as involving two steps, i.e., emotional and reasoned.

In the emotional step, people treat the information emotionally and build a feeling of acceptance or resistance to start discussing the matter. Only if the positive emotion is formed by IFs in this first emotional step, one can form an attitude through the next reasoned step. In the reasoned step, people consider, for example, whether the compensation or benefits they can receive are enough and finally form an attitude towards the repository siting project itself. A positive result at the end would mean that the people would choose not to oppose or join the protests opposing the project disorderly. Each step is affected by certain set of IFs as presented in the model proposed in Figure 1, based on the interviews. How and when these IFs built-in to the model actually influenced the attitude formation in the actual case of France would be described later.

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Trust

The importance of people’s trust in the French government and implementation agency was observed especially when people strongly opposed the project. If people do not trust the government, they will not let the government project move forward, as happened in the case of France. Trust in local assembly members led people to autonomously or passively accept decisions or not to oppose to the decision made by local assembly members to have the HLW underground research center in Bure.

Securing Trust: Law, Activities of implementation agency, Third party evaluation

There are proponents that play a large role securing or acquiring the trust of people towards the government, implementers, and the project itself. Those of which should be mentioned include the existence of law, activities conducted by implementation agency, and a third party independent evaluation of the project. Existence of the law itself would be important, since people seem to trust and believe in the law, which was thought to be unchangeable, as seen in the statement like “ People thought the law would not be changed once it is enacted and will be followed, even though politicians changes.” The content of the law that was designed carefully to be recognized positively by different actors, was also important for the project to move forward. Activities of the implementation agency, such as working closely with local people and workers living in local communities, for example, can have an influence on acquiring people’s trust. Implementation agency can also play a role of a mediator between different opinion holders regarding the project as well, which would reduce the serious conflict. In addition, third parties who evaluate the results and progress of the project can help people recognize the project as fair and clear.

Politically Driven

By having the project led by elected members of Parliament, the project seemed to move forward. It was recognized as more democratic, as parliament initiated the project and became involved more, perhaps due to decreased trust in the government or technicians. Parliament members chosen by the people could make a decision regarding the project. Consensus built among parties at the national level is also necessary to avoid conflicts even inside the parliament, which could lead people to lose trust in the project. Additionally, coordination between different stakeholders, such as farmers, people from industries, and local assembly members in the local community can help ensure certain people from becoming emotionally negative toward the project.

Process: Fairness and Openness

Fairness and Transparency


Many in the interview mentioned the importance of Fairness and Transparency of the project’s process recognized by people. Securing fairness and transparency also included the situation of not making anyone feel not being heard, which could lead to the strong opposition. Announcing all the information of the project procedure before the actual implementation seemed to help people recognize the transparency of the project, and thus allows starting discussing the possibility of having the facility in their communities.

Self-Determination and Participation

This IF; self-determination and participation signifies that it is important to have a system or framework for people to decide by themselves, in other words, to facilitate ways for people feel they are in control of as those who decide. This can be accomplished by having intense discussion and consultation with local people and have the local leaders as their voice to decide on the project. Additionally, prioritizing the voluntary participation of local communities in the laboratory site selection process helped people to think that it was locals themselves making the decision about the project and not others; therefore, the project received fewer objections.

Step by Step Approach and Reversibility with scientific ground

The step by step approach, in which the project proceeds by making stepwise decisions, while having consultations and conversations with local people and different actors in earlier stages, was largely recognized essential by interviewees. It enabled the project to move forward by letting people understand and accept any decision made one by one. Also the concept of reversibility was unique and seems to be indispensable in France. The realization and definition of the concept is still under the discussion by ANDRA, but having the concept itself enabled the project to have multiple possibilities and flexibility on decision-making in the future. This IF enables people to accept the project for the time, since there is even a possibility of withdrawing the decision later if they want.

Multiple Choices, Openness

Having multiple choices, such as plural laboratories as promised in the Bataille law in 1991, helps people involved to think that “it would not be only them involved in the project”. Additionally, having multiple siting choices helped people to recognize the project fair and trustable, since it will present multiple scientific results. Openness of the project process also helps lessen the objection from the people. Openness can mean the process is clear, transparent, and possible to access so that the people are able to participate in the project.

Final Decision Maker in Local Level

In France, assemblies in the department level had an authority to decide whether to accept the laboratory in their area or not, while giving the actual local municipality to vote also on the issue. A targeted range of local assemblies with authority to decide on accepting the facility and its power balance seemed to matter to some extent in order to form a final decision.


Economic Benefits

Economic benefits, such as the possibility of increased employment, education institutions, or any form of local development as well as the additional income for local community are the important aspects of the project’s acceptance. It seems that the repository site or laboratory would not be accepted without these benefits, as even seen in the statement of locals in the area like “No money, No project here”. However, how and when those benefits are mentioned to locals may differ between situations when they accept it or when they do not. Moreover local characteristics or situations matter with regard to how one recognizes the benefits. The project would be a great benefit for a small municipality to survive especially when they are suffering from economic decline and depopulation, for example.

Local’s Perceptions: Risk, Competition, Project recognition

Fear of the long life waste and question for the safety have been seen in people. Risk perceptions, such as how people care about the environment, understand the safety, and trust the stratum/geology matter for local people to consider future acceptance of HLW repository. It also matters whether it is a laboratory or actual repository to be discussed for site selection. The existence of competition between local municipalities over benefits can also lead multiple municipalities to voluntarily show interest for the project and accept the laboratory, or in the future, the repository site. Local people’s perception of the overall project also influences how people form an attitude or get involved in the discussion. This perception includes whether local people are first of all interested in the project or not, whether they consider it as a meaningful project for them and/or for the country, and whether they become to hold the feeling of responsibility/contribution for the national project and the future generations or not. Having no interest or totally depending on others’ opinions on the project can also lead not to show any objection towards the project.

4. Interpretation of the Attitude Formation Processes

Applying the attitude formation model proposed, the situations in the case of France was re-examined and explained as understood from people’s attitude formation processes. The chain of events in the case of France has been separated into three phases: i) Project suspension due to strong public opposition in 1980s, ii) HLW underground laboratory selection process after 1990, and iii) Selection process of second (granite) site after Bure being selected in1998. The following sections will examine each of them to interpret its result by applying the attitude formation model proposed.

4.1 The strong public opposition and project suspension in 1980s In the 1980s, the HLW repository siting process was suspended in France due to strong public opposition. The reasons for such opposition originated in the process of the site selection handled by the government and implementation agency as well as the people’s past experience with the government.


During the selection process in 1980s, local assembly members and local people were suddenly told by Prefet5 that their areas had become candidate sites for HLW repository and ANDRA would come for the geological survey from the very next day. The selection process of candidate sites was purely led by a geological-technical point of view. The project had not been widely publicized to people and had not been understood by public including local assembly members. Moreover, people did not have a trust in the government especially on nuclear and technology related fields from their past experience on government’s reaction towards the Chernobyl accident, which was not reliable and satisfactory at all for them. Since the HLW repository siting project was to be proceeded in such circumstances, it was hard for the public to recognize any transparency or fairness in the project.

It was also heard in the interviews that people by then felt that their land had become a candidate site without them being consulted and they were unable to be involved in the matter even though they lived there. In addition, since the underground repository siting then seemed to be determined as the only one solution for HLW management without any other options listed together to choose from, local people were afraid that if they accepted the underground laboratory, the actual repository site would automatically be built in their land without them being consulted.

The people’s image of radioactive waste or the underground repository was considerably negative. Some people even thought that an underground repository would be an underground dumping ground where no one could see in daily life and thus be forgotten. At the same time, lack of openness made it difficult for local people to trust the safeness of the project.

All these above are the aspects of IFs considered in the emotional step in the attitude formation model proposed and the situation of this phase are presented in Figure 2. It presents the public involved in an opposition, whose IFs included in emotional step had been perceived negatively. Under such a circumstance, the economical benefits that were to be offered and consulted with people would have not been considered in their formation of attitude towards the project. People at that time formed their attitudes without going into the reasoned step in the model. The risk of the project was emphasized within the public without particular reasons for it. As concluded in the Bataille report in 1990, a survey held after the suspension of the HLW repository selection process, the economical benefit was actually under-evaluated and not well recognized. This Bataille report not only found that the information for people to evaluate and consider its cost and benefit was lacking in the process, but also highlighted the situation where people could not even think about those potential benefit, because of the factors other than actual promised benefits. Again, the project was decided to be suspended totally at least for a year due to the strong public opposition. (Figure 2)

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This new process of the siting after the Bataille law asked local municipalities themselves to first voluntarily show their interests in the project. The local consultations were aimed to provide any information about the project requested by locals, as well as explaining the procedure of before and after the siting and the possible benefits the locals may receive, to those who seemed to be interested in accepting the site. This also led the local people to have a sense of self-participation and determination as well as perceived openness of the project. It avoided local people to have the feelings such as “we were made to become the repository site by the government without any consultation.” The voting of the local assembly members and public hearings required in the process of finalizing the repository siting also helped people form the feeling of self-determination and believe that the project would forego only step-by-step. The law also gave the justification of the project from the national responsibility point of view that helps the locals to have the sense of contribution to their country if they accepted the site.

Moreover, around Bure, it was revealed that the mayor of the town and the person from ANDRA were communicating closely each other. It was also revealed that the one department assembly member having an interest in accepting the project himself offered his land for a pre-survey (boring-survey) and actively worked on the inter-local community coordination. Such an existence of key person in the local area working on the project actively while coordinating the local politics helped to move the project forward. Additionally, coordination and communications with local community made by the implementation agency ANDRA let people gain trust toward the agency as well as more understandings of the project. The promise made by law requiring the multiple HLW repository underground laboratories to be built was trusted significantly by people and helped accept the farness and justification of the project. People had a strong trust in “law” and saw it as something that will be enforced by any politicians or government. Such a promise of multiple laboratories siting and negotiation/coordination activities held nation-wide in different cities helped people recognize the fairness as well as hold a sense that they will not be the only one who might be accepting the laboratory. Additionally, the repository being simply listed as one of the options for the future HLW management along other research topics in the law may have helped its underground research become accepted.

All of these situations after 1990 explained above indicate that the IFs listed for the emotional step in the attitude formation model have all been satisfied positively or at least not perceived negatively by local people. Finally then, people were able to start discussing about the possibility of accepting the laboratory in their area and consider its benefit as well as cost, including safety issues.

Around Bure, in addition to local assembly member showing the interest to the project, local communities were facing an economic depression and a shrinking of population due to the loss of employment or the pursuit of higher education institutions. It seems that Bure accepted the HLW repository underground laboratory into their area in the end based on a large expectation of economical benefits such as additional employment, education institutions, and improvements of public facilities, while requesting the concept of reversibility as an acceptable condition. It was heard in interviews conducted by the author in the local community that the laboratory would not have been accepted if the community could not foresee the possibility of the economical benefits. As long as additional employment could be provided, the project at the underground laboratory could keep going in this area, said one interviewee. The mayor of Bure currently says that they accepted the facility because it was not the actual repository, but because it was just a laboratory. On the other hand, the activities that ANDRA has been conducting in the local area, such as opening the laboratory to the public for a site visit and holding an exhibition on science, helped ANDRA to interact with the locals and built good relationships with them. It led people to understand more about ANDRA and accept them as approachable to have conversations with.


Local people seeing the work in the laboratory also gained more trust in its safety as well. It was found that there are even some people who now have a feeling that having the future repository somewhere in the region might be a responsibility and fate for them as citizens. At the same time, there are people who have no interest in the project, as long as no actual problem occurs.

This implies that the IFs in reasoned step in the model also has satisfied and led people not to get involved in the public opposition of the siting. As a consequence, the community accepted the laboratory and has kept it working until now (figure 3, left). Even though the potential of economic benefit was significant for Bure to accept the facility, without the emotional step first cleared by various coordination conducted in the process, people in Bure still may not have accepted it, considering the case of 1980s.

4.3 Selection Process for Granite Site, after Bure being selected

In 1998, after Bure as selected as the laboratory site, another site selection process in granite stratum began by the order of the government.6 However, the selecting process was reversed back to the way that the candidate sites were first selected by the implementation agency on the basis of geological scientific point of view. Only after that, consultations with locals in those particular areas were conducted. Such a selection process was seen as “back to the approach taken in 1980s”, since it seemed to prioritized technical aspect of the site selection. Such a change in selection approach was partly due to the criticism for the earlier selection process conducted by MP Bataille, which was only able to select one site, Bure. However, this granite site mission turned out to be not what the implementers wanted.

The political conflict between Minister of Environment from Green party and the Ministry of Industry seemed to have had a negative impact on this second site selection process. Moreover, the politicians in the Green Party exposed information on pre-selected candidate sites before the official announcement, where public discussion and consultations were planned to be conducted after its announcement in order to have well-organized consultation simply at needed locations as mentioned above, from implementation point of view. The media also broadcasted the news as if some areas were already decided as the laboratory sites. As a result, the residents concerned did not see the openness, fairness, or justice in the project and lost the trust in it. People thought the government was doing everything in secret and without any consultation with public. Distrust had also been built among people for security of the facility and the step-by-step procedure that supposed to exist. People immediately started to protest, opposing the project and even refusing to discuss about it. The local assembly members, leaders in the community, also started to oppose to the project as public pressure increased. Additionally, it was heard in the interviews by author that opposition groups had decided not to let residents even discuss about the project in order to avoid people be allured by the benefit of the project, based on the experience in Bure. At the same time, people were reminded of concerns or risks of having those facilities on agricultural goods and tourism industry, mainly by the experience of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or so-called Mad Cow Disease, all over Europe happened right before this granite site selection.

All above seem to indicate that people formed a negative attitude towards the project in the emotional step. Under such circumstances, people would not discuss or even think about the possible benefits they can acquire even though similar benefits were promised as the case of Bure (figure 3, right).

6 It was required by the law to have multiple HLW underground research laboratories.

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which the operator is repeatedly explaining the technology and ability of the facility to the residents, while the residents cannot even listen to them since they do not trust them yet. Moreover, the government may be able to realize that residents are seeking the fairness and legitimacy of the project, instead of the benefit of the project first.

On the other hand, since the model is still under the development, its limits should also be discussed. There seems to be a situation where it is difficult to explain the case in the two-step attitude formation model proposed. That would be the time when people seemed to accept and say yes to the project “emotionally.” However, such an “emotional yes” may not be a yes in the long term and could produce different issues like people start expressing their dissatisfaction gradually. Such a situation can be seen when people see the benefit and decide to take it emotionally based on a competition-like feeling that makes people focus perhaps too much on the benefit, for example. Then, it is questionable whether people would stay convinced with their decision since both pros and cons of the project had not been discussed in long-term point of view. Thus, it may be better if the emotional yes could be converted into reasoned yes, which may lessen the possibility of having to deal with hassles of reversing the decision already made. Even though the model proposed in the research has not captured such a possibility, it might still be able to contribute to analyses of whether the decision made is emotionally a yes or not. The model may even be able to support a transformation of people’s decision from emotional yes to a reasoned yes, with further research.

While it is true that more improvements and verification on the model should be made, benefits of the proposed attitude formation model are inevitable. This research provides basis for further discussion and can contribute, in part, to the implementation of future projects with fewer disastrous consequences. 6. Conclusion

The author, first of all, clarified what exactly have been happening in the process of selecting the underground repository and laboratory for HLW in France from 1980s to after 1990. Based on the interviews conducted to major stakeholders, local people’s attitude towards the siting project was understood as the important determinant for the result of siting and the factors that affected their attitude were identified. Then, the two-step attitude formation model to understand the HLW repository siting project was proposed with the list of Influential Factors (IFs) that affect each step. It enabled to explain what affected the result of siting in 1980s and in 1990s including two contrasting results of clay and granite site selections. It contributed to understand what kind of political framing and public communication for example, discussed partly in the past researches on France (Barthe, 2009; Barthe and Mays, 2000), have led to form certain local people’s attitudes throughout the years of HLW underground laboratory and repository siting project implementation in France. Its implications in consideration of other researches and the potential to utilize this model for a better planning of future HLW repository siting projects were discussed in the paper as well.

Documents

Working paper by Marie Onga of International Project ...intl.civil.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/docs/wpaper/Onga_en111118.pdf · Recognizing the disastrous situation that emerged in 1990, then