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| Activists have targeted EdF repeatedly as it leads plans for new nuclear build in Europe |
A French
court has fined energy giant EDF 1.5 million euros (£1.3 million) and sent two
of its staff to jail for spying on Greenpeace campaigners.
The company
is hoping to build a new fleet of nuclear reactors in the UK.
A court in
Nanterre, near Paris, found that EDF employed security firm Kargus to spy on
Greenpeace as it campaigned against new reactors in France.
The court
also sent two Kargus employees to jail and handed Greenpeace 500,000 euros
(£428,000) in damages.
Greenpeace's
campaign targeted in particular the new reactor being built at Flammanville on
the Normandy coast, one of the European Pressurised Water Reactors (EPRs) that
EDF hopes to bring to the UK.
Adelaide
Colin, communications director for Greenpeace in France, said the decision
"sends a strong signal to the nuclear industry: no-one is above the
law".
The
Tribunal Correctionel de Nanterre heard that Kargus Consultants, then run by a
former member of the French foreign secret service, had compiled a dossier on
Greenpeace via means that included hacking into a computer belonging to former
campaigns head Yannick Jadot.
EDF
maintained that it had just asked Kargus to monitor the activists, and that the
consultants had exceeded their remit.
But justice
Isabelle Prevost-Desprez disagreed, handing three-year sentences to Pascal
Durieux and Pierre-Paul Francois, head and deputy head of EDF's nuclear
security operation.
Thierry
Lorho, then head of Kargus, also received three years, and information
specialist Alain Quiros two.
All also
have to pay compensation to Greenpeace.
EDF did not
return calls from BBC News, but its lawyer told Reuters news agency in Paris
that the company would appeal against the decision.
Rainbow
echoes
Through its
ownership of British Energy, EDF runs eight nuclear stations in the UK and has
plans to build four new reactors, two each at Sizewell in Suffolk and Hinkley
Point in Somerset.
These will
probably be EPRs.
Although
EDF and the constuctors Areva point to the EPR's substantial power and safety
features, the two in construction at Flammanville in France and Olkiluoto in
Finland, are both behind schedule and over budget.
Tom Burke,
formerly head of Friends of the Earth UK and a visiting professor at Imperial
and University Colleges in London, said the spying case showed how desperate
EDF was to negate criticism of nuclear power.
"What
this judgement reveals is that EDF, and the French government which owns it,
are prepared to go to any lengths, including breaking the law, in order to
defeat opposition to more nuclear power," he told BBC News.
"The
whole future of the French plan to sell more nuclear power to the world depends
on getting the British consumer to pay to build new nuclear reactors in
Britain.
"I
would advise every critic of the French drive to expand nuclear power in
Britain to be very vigilant in ensuring they are not themselves victims of EDF
dirty tricks."
Greenpeace
has said in the past that it suspected EDF of using "dirty tricks"
against in in the UK as well as in France - a charge that the company has
denied.
In the wake
of the French verdict, Greenpeace has asked the company to "come
clean".
For some,
this episode evokes memories of the Rainbow Warrior sinking in New Zealand in
1985.
With French
government backing, foreign intelligence service personnel mined and sank the
Greenpeace vessel in a bid to prevent it interfering with nuclear testing in
the Pacific.
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