The Industrial Vision

The transition from laboratory curiosity to industrial power source required visionary leadership. Pierre Guillaumat, who led the CEA in the 1950s, came from the French oil industry. He understood energy at scale and pushed for reactors that could compete economically with fossil fuels. His famous dictum—"Nuclear power must be French, competitive, and safe, in that order"—set priorities that would guide development for decades.

The choice of reactor technology proved crucial. While Americans pursued light water reactors and British developed gas-cooled designs, France initially chose a third path: graphite-moderated, gas-cooled reactors using natural uranium. This choice reflected France's limited enrichment capacity and desire for independence from American technology. The UNGG (Uranium Naturel Graphite Gaz) reactors at Marcoule and Chinon demonstrated French technical capability but proved economically uncompetitive.

The decisive shift came in 1969 when France abandoned the UNGG program in favor of American-designed pressurized water reactors (PWR). This decision, painful for French pride, demonstrated pragmatic adaptation. Rather than slavishly copying American designs, French engineers adapted and improved them. The resulting "Frenchified" PWRs incorporated lessons from UNGG experience, particularly in instrumentation and control systems.