6. An Alternative Route? France’s Position in the Spanish Nuclear Program, c. 1950s–1980s

Pedro A. Martínez Lillo, Una introducción al estudio de las relaciones hispano–francesas (1945–1951) (Madrid: Fundación Juan March, 1985); Florentino Portero, Franco aislado: La cuestión española, 1945–1950 (Madrid: Aguilar, 1989); and Xabier Hualde, El “cerco” aliado. Estados Unidos, Gran Bretaña y Francia frente a la Dictadura Franquista (1945–1953) (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2016).

Esther M. Sánchez, Rumbo al Sur. Francia y la España del desarrollo, 1958–1969 (Madrid: CSIC, 2006).

Rafael Castro, Génesis y transformación de un modelo de inversión internacional: El capital francés en España, c.1850–2006, PhD Dissertation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2010; Esther M. Sánchez, “Francia y la España del tardofranquismo y la transición. Sinergias económicas en un marco de cambio político, 1970–1986,” Hispania 254 (2016): pp. 847–82; and Núria Puig and Rafael Castro, “Patterns of International Investment in Spain, 1850–2005,” Business History Review 83 (2009): 505–37.

Among the better-known works, we can mention: Maurice Vaïsse (dir.), La France et l’atome. Études d’histoire nucléaire (Bruxelles: Bruylant, 1994); Alain Beltran and Jean-Paul Couvreux, Electricité de France. 50 ans d’histoire(s) à l’internationale (Paris: Cherche-Midi, 1996); Henri Morsel, Histoire de l’électricité en France (T.3. 1946–1987) (Paris: Fayard, 1996); and Boris Dänzel-Kantof and Félix Torres, L’énergie de la France: du Zoé aux EPR, une histoire du programme nucléaire français (Paris: F. Bourin, 2013).

See, among others, Rafael Caro (ed.), Historia nuclear de España (Madrid: Sociedad Nuclear Española, 1995); Ana Romero de Pablos and José M. Sánchez Ron, Energía nuclear en España. De la JEN al CIEMAT (Madrid: Doce Calles/CIEMAT, 2001); José M. Sánchez Ron, “International Relations in Spanish Physics from 1900 to the Cold War,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 33 (2002): 3–31; and Albert Presas, “Science on the Periphery. The Spanish Reception of Nuclear Energy: An Attempt at Modernity?,” Minerva 42 (2005): 197–218. An updated state of the art (together with a more in-depth analysis of the economic, business and financial dimensions) in Joseba De la Torre and Mar Rubio, “Nuclear Power for a Dictatorship. State and Business Involvement in the Spanish Atomic Program, 1950–1985,” Journal of Contemporary History 51 (2016): 385–411.

Frédéric Marty and Esther M. Sánchez, “La centrale nucléaire hispano-française de Vandellos: logiques économiques, technologiques et politiques d’une décision,” Bulletin d’Histoire de l’Electricité 36 (2000): 5–30; Esther M. Sánchez, “La connexió hispano-francesa: intercanvis d’energia elèctrica i cooperació nuclear, c. 1950–1990,” Recerques 61 (2010): 101–36; and Ana Romero de Pablos, “Energía nuclear e industria en la España de mediados del siglo XX. Zorita, Santa María de Garoña y Vandellós 1,” in La física en la dictadura. Físicos, cultura y poder en España, ed. Néstor Herrán and Xavier Roqué (Barcelona: UAB, 2012), 45–63.

“Ordonnance no. 45-2563 du 18 octobre 1945 instituant un Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique,” Journal Officiel de la République Française, 31/09/1945. The beginnings of the CEA in Bertrand Goldschmidt, Le complexe atomique. Histoire politique de l’énergie nucléaire (Paris: Fayard, 1980); Aline Coutrot, “La creation du Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique,” in De Gaulle et la nation face aux problèmes de défense, 1945–1946, Institut du Temps Présent/Institut Charles de Gaulle (Paris: Plon, 1983); Marie-José Lovérini, L’Atome de la recherche à l’industrie: le Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique (Paris: Gallimard, 1996); Paul Reuss, L’épopée de l’énergie nucléaire: une histoire scientifique el industrielle (Paris: EDP Sciences, 2007); and Cyrille Foasso, “La R&D nucléaire en France de 1945 à 1965: le Département des études de piles du CEA,” Annales Historiques de l’Electricité 5 (2007): 63–74.

On the origins and development of UNGG technology and its differences with regard to American procedures, see: Jean-François Picard, Alain Beltran, and Martine Bungener, Mémoire d’une entreprise publique, histoire orale d’EDF, 1946–1981 (Paris: CNRS/EDF, 1981); ibid., Histoires d’EDF. Comment se sont prises les decisions de 1945 à nos jours (Paris: Dunod, 1985); Marcel Boiteux, Haute tension (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1983); Jacques Leclercq, L’ère nucléaire (Paris: Hachette, 1986); Georges Lamiral, Chronique de trente années d’équipement nucléaire à Electricité de France (Paris: AHEF, 1988); Georges-Henri Soutou, “La logique d’un choix: le CEA et le problème des filières électronucléaires,” Relations Internationales 68 (1991): 351–77; Rémy Carle, L’électricité nucléaire (Paris: PUF, 1993); Georges-Henri Soutou and Alain Beltran (eds.), Pierre Guillaumat, la passion des grands projets industriels (Paris: Editions Rive Droite, 1995); Gabrielle Hecht, Le rayonnement de la France. Énergie nucléaire et identité nationale après la Seconde Guèrre Mondiale (Paris: La Découverte, 2004); and Boris Dänzel-Kantof and Félix Torres, L’énergie de la France. Great Britain had also embarked on a technology similar to UNGG (Magnox reactors). Like France, it lacked the necessary industrial equipment to enrich uranium and aspired to create plutonium bombs. It was able to export a 160 MWe Magnox unit to Italy (La Latina) and another 166 MWe to Japan (Tokai). See Simon Taylor, The Fall and Rise of Nuclear Power in Britain (Cambridge: UIT Cambridge, 2016).

See Walter C. Patterson, The Plutonium Business and the Spread of the Bomb (New York: Random House, 1985); and Maurice Vaïsse, La Grandeur. Politique étrangère du général De Gaulle 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998).

Overall, natural uranium was cheaper than enriched uranium. However, the costs of construction and exploitation for French plants (still in the prototype stage) were higher than for the American plants (already in the industrial stage).

In this regard, see the revealing article by Richard Ullman, “The Covert French Connection,” Foreign Policy 75 (1989): 3–33; and the subsequent works by Pierre Melandri, “Aux origins de la cooperation nucléaire franco-américaine,” in La France et l’atome, Maurice Vaïsse (dir.), pp. 235–54; Jacques Villain, La Force nucléaire française. L’aide des États-Unis (Paris: Institut de Stratégie Comparée, 2014); and John Krige, “A Transnational Approach to US Nuclear Weapons Relationships with Britain and France in the 60s and 70s,” in Cold War Science and the Transatlantic Circulation of Knowledge, ed. Jeroen van Dongen (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 59–73.

Today, France has 58 operational reactors distributed at 19 NPs, which provide 75% of the energy consumed in the country. All function with PWR technology (the last UNGG unit closed in 1994). Framatome is part of Areva, strongly linked to EDF and 80% controlled by the State. Fessenheim is the oldest NP in the country.

Three at Marcoule, three at Chinon, two at Saint Laurent des Eaux and one at Bugey, in addition to the Spanish reactor.

On French political economy after the global energy shock, see Jean-Marcel Jeanneney (ed.), L’Économie française depuis 1967: la traversée des turbulences mondiales (Paris: Seuil, 1989); Eric Bussière (dir.), Georges Pompidou face à la mutation économique de l’Occident, 1969-74 (Paris: PUF, 2003); Frédéric Abadie and Jean-Pierre Corcelette, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2009); Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Le pouvoir et la vie, 22nd ed. (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 2007); and Serge Berstein, Jean-Claude Casanova, and Jean-François Sirinelli, Les années Giscard. La politique économique, 1974–1981 (Paris: Armand Colin, 2009).

Claude Bienvenu, Superphénix. Le nucléaire à la française (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999), 183. Further information concerning fast-breeder reactors in Walter C. Patterson, The Plutonium Business. A study of escalation over time of French nuclear program’s costs in Arnulf Grubler, “The Costs of the French Nuclear Scale-up: A Case of Negative Learning by Doing,” Energy Policy 38 (2010): 5174–88.

This episode marked the birth of the network Sortir du Nucléaire, a federation of over 900 anti-nuclear associations and 60,000 members. See www.​sortirdunucleair​e.​org, accessed in March 2017.

In 1967, the family business Fuerzas Hidroeléctricas del Segre requested entry into the group. FECSA, HECSA and ENHER agreed to offer it 2% each from their own 25% stakes. Thus, capital and energy ended up with the following split: 25% for EDF, 23% for FECSA, HECSA and ENHER and 6% for Fuerzas del Segre. Minutes of the Administrative Council of HIFRENSA in Archivo Histórico de la Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (henceforth ASEPI), box 4640.

List of agreements and companies in Esther M. Sánchez, “La connexió hispano–francesa,” p. 109. More details in Renan Viguié, La traversée électrique des Pyrenées. Histoire de l’interconnexion entre la France et l’Espagne (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2014); and Red Eléctrica de España (www.​ree.​es, accessed June 2016).

Known as “winter against summer,” the electrical interconnection agreements were based on the provision of energy to France during the winter, when its hydrological production was reduced due to freezing, in exchange for supplying energy to Spain during the summer, a season that generated excess stores in France due to thawing and scarcity in Spain due to drought.

More details in “L’Enseignement du nucléaire en France,” special issue of Revue Générale Nucléaire, 5 (1984); Ana Romero de Pablos and José M. Sánchez Ron, Energía nuclear en España; Néstor Herrán, “Isotope Networks: Training, Sales and Publications, 1946–65,” Dynamics, 29 (2009): 285–306; and Alfonso Carpio, “Ciencia y política exterior francesa en la España de Franco: el caso de los físicos catalanes,” in La física en la dictadura (1939–1975), 221–38.

JEN–CEA relationships greatly intensified thanks to the close personal friendship between Otero Navascués and the CEA’s Director of External Affairs Bertrand Goldschmidt. See their correspondence in the Service d’Archives du Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique (SACEA), AR-2008-22-73, dossiers no. 1/6, 2/6, 4/6 and 5/6, 1954–1963. Otero’s international trajectory and connections abroad in Leonardo Villena, “José María Otero, un científico internacional,” Arbor 450 (1983): 95–108; Juan R. De Andrés, José María Otero de Navascués Enríquez de la Sota, marqués de Hermosilla. La baza nuclear y científica del mundo hispánico durante la Guerra Fría (México: Plaza & Valdés, 2005); and Carlos Pérez, José María Otero Navascués. Ciencia y Armada en la España del siglo XX (Madrid: CSIC, 2012).

Negotiation process described in Frédéric Marty and Esther M. Sánchez, “La centrale nucléaire hispano-française de Vandellos”; and Esther M. Sánchez “La connexió hispano–francesa”.

Esther M. Sánchez, Rumbo al Sur, pp. 303–11.

“Ampliación del financiamiento de ENHER para atender a sus participaciones en una central nuclear hispano–francesa y otras empresas,” ASEPI, file 906. An overview of the main Spanish nuclear players in Joseba De la Torre and Mar Rubio, “Nuclear power for a dictatorship”.

Letter from Gregorio López Bravo, Spanish Industry Minister, to Alain Peyrefitte, French Minister of Scientific Research and Atomic and Space Issues, Madrid, 4/6/1966, and “Informe de la central nuclear hispano-francesa en Cataluña,” December 1965, both in ASEPI, file 906.

Memo by French Ministers of Industry and Atomic and Space Issues to the Prime Minister, Paris, 8/2/1966, Archives historiques d’Eléctricité de France (AEDF), box 89522.

Letter by EDF Engineer G. Lamiral to Deputy Director of Equipment J.P. Roux, nd., AEDF, box 89522.

Plant complete, with all tests passed, ready to begin functioning immediately and maintain normal and efficient exploitation. “Contract avec le Groupe de Constructeurs. Notice explicative,” AEDF, box 890521.

Indatom, SEEN, GAAA, Alsthom, Campenon-Bernard, Ateliers et Forges de la Loire, Compagnie Electro-Mécanique, Babcok & Wilcox, Stein & Roubaix, Compagnie Générale d’Electricité, Compagnie Générale de Télégraphie Sans Fil, Neyrpic, Péchiney, Saint Gobain Techniques Nouvelles, Forges et Ateliers du Creusot, Jeumont-Schneider, Ugine Kuhlmann, Société Industrielle Delattre-Levivier, Compagnie de Constructions Mécaniques Procédés Sulzer, Chantiers de l’Atlantique, Compagnie d’Entreprises Électriques, Mécaniques et de Travaux Publics, Société Hispano-Alsacienne, Société Parisienne pour l’Industrie Électrique, Compagnie Industrielle de Travaux and Merlin et Gérin. Indatom and SEEN were acting as coordinators. Central nuclear de Vandellós, no. 2, 1968; and “Contrat de contre-garanties pour la centrale de Vandellos (CEA-SOCIA),” AEDF, box 890520.

Meeting of the Administrative Council of HIFRENSA, 3/10/1968, AEDF, box 891165.

The whole list of Spanish firms can be found in Esther M. Sánchez, “La connexió hispano–francesa,” p. 128.

Minutes of the 14th meeting of the Administrative Council of HIFRENSA, Barcelona, 19/11/1970, AEDF, box 891165.

“Note concernant la conduite de l’affaire Vandellos,” 10/4/1967, AEDF, box 890521. The same dynamic is observed at Zorita and Santa María de Garoña NPs. Joseba De la Torre and Mar Rubio, “Learning by Doing: The First Spanish Nuclear Plant,” Business History Review (in press).

“Les problèmes de la collaboration hispano–française dans la centrale de Vandellos,” 11/3/1969, AEDF, box 891165.

It was the deadliest nuclear accident ever to occur in Spain, rated 3 on the International Atomic Energy Agency-IAEA’s International Nuclear Event Scale (which ranges from 0 to 7), which means that there was a release of radioactivity, although in low doses.

New reloads of fuel, waste treatment and dismantling costs are not included. AEDF, box 890521. Based on the exchange rate for 1 January 1973.

“Conclusion actuelle de la négociation franco–espagnole sur la centrale nucléaire de Catalogne, 30/12/1965,” AEDF, box 89522. Similar perceptions in Gaston Palewski, Mémoires d’action, 1924–1974 (Paris: Plon, 1988), 281.

The possibility of financing Vandellós under the Financial Protocol of 1963 was originally considered, but the French banks that controlled 80% of the Protocol demonstrated serious reservations in that regard due to lack of confidence in a technology with an uncertain future. Memo to the Minister of Industry, n.d., Archives Nationales de France-Centre des Archives Contemporaines (AN-CAC), Industrie, 19890566/72.

“Avenant au Protocole du 27 juillet 1967 relatif au financement d’une centrale nucléaire,” Paris, 26/11/1970, http://​www.​diplomatie.​gouv.​fr/​traites/​affichetraite.​do?​accord=​TRA19700108 (accessed in February 2017).

“Protocole entre le gouvernement de la République française et le gouvernement espagnol relatif au financement d’une centrale nucléaire,” Madrid, 27/7/1967, http://​www.​diplomatie.​gouv.​fr/​traites/​affichetraite.​do?​accord=​TRA19670081 (accessed in February 2017).

Letter from Peyrefitte to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paris, 6/6/1966, Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (henceforth AMAE-F), Cabinet du Ministre, Maurice Couve de Murville, 1958–67, vol. 76.

Conditions and modes of application in the reports “Centrale Nucléaire de Vandellos. Historique de la négociation et charges acceptées par EDF,” 14/9/1967; and “Centrale de Vandellos. Résumé des charges prises par l’EDF et le CEA,” Paris, 21/2/1967, AEDF, box 890520.

“Contrat de contre-garanties pour la centrale de Vandellos (CEA-SOCIA),” AEDF, box 890520.

See “Contrôle de la centrale nucléaire franco-espagnole,” AEDF, box 891165; and “Informe de la central nuclear hispano-francesa en Cataluña,” December 1965, ASEPI, file 906.

Ibid.

Albert Presas, “Science in the periphery”; Francesc X. Barca, “Secrecy or Discretion: Transfer of Nuclear Technology to Spain in Franco Period,” History of Technology 30 (2010): 179–96; and Javier Ordóñez and José M. Sánchez Ron, “Nuclear Energy in Spain. From Hiroshima to the Sixties,” in National Military Establishment and the Advancement of Science and Technology, ed. Paul Forman and José M. Sánchez Ron (Boston: Kluwer Academic Pub.), 185–213.

“Relations nucléaires franco-espagnoles,” memo by the Direction des Affaires Politiques, Sous-direction des Questions Atomiques, MAE, Paris, 24/6/1980, AMAE-F, EUROPE, Espagne, 1977–81, vol. 4367; and “Nota para el Excmo. Sr. Capitán General [Agustín Muñoz Grandes] sobre la posibilidad de fabricar plutonio (bombas de plutonio) en España,” Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica/Archivo de la Fundación Francisco Franco, MF R-7276, file 4226. I thank Lorenzo Delgado for this reference.

This is according to some military scientists and technicians from JEN that would have been personally involved in the project of obtaining plutonium bombs for Spain, a project that ultimately had to be abandoned due to high costs, lack of agreement at high government levels, and the desire not to jeopardize friendly relations with the United States. Guillermo Velarde, Proyecto Islero. Cuando España pudo desarrollar armas nucleares (Córdoba: Guadalmazán, 2016).

Spain eventually signed in 1987, and France in 1992. Safeguards agreements with the IAEA had been concluded, however, at the beginning of the 1980s, i.e. Spain would finally have then renounced nuclear weapons.

HIFRENSA, Vandellós I. Historia de la primera central nuclear catalana (Barcelona: HIFRENSA, 1997), 22–3 and 25.

Sport, culture and leisure facilities were common for all the residents. See Juan F. Ródenas and Elisenda Pla, Antonio Bonet Castellana. Poblat d’Hifrensa , l’Hospitalet de l’Infant (Barcelona: Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya, 2008). French archival material shows numerous demands received by Spanish engineers wishing to work on Vandellós 1. As regards French engineers, Vandellós served as a springboard into management positions in CEA, EDF and other national champions. EDF internal memo, n.d., AEDF, box 890520.

Letter by the director of the Planas del Rey Urbanization in L’Hospitalet de l’Infant, 30/11/1966. AEDF, box 890520.

“Note concernant la conduite de l’affaire Vandellos,” 10/4/1967, AEDF, box 890521.

See Municipal Minutes Books in Arxiu Municipal de Vandellòs i l’Hospitalet de l’Infant (AMVHI). It should be noted that Franco’s dictatorship denied to the very end basic rights such as the right to strike, free expression or association.

Memo by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paris, 28/1/1976, AMAE-F, EUROPE, Espagne, 1977–81, vol. 4367.

“Coopération nucléaire avec l’Espagne”, memo by the Direction Générale des Relations Culturelles, Scientifiques et Techniques, MAE, Paris, 12/7/1978, AMAE-F, EUROPE, Espagne, 1977–81, vol. 4367.

“Coopération nucléaire avec l’Espagne”, memo by the Direction Générale des Relations Culturelles, Scientifiques et Techniques, MAE, Paris, 28/1/1976, AMAE-F, EUROPE, Espagne, 1971–76, vol. 421.

Memo by the commercial counsellor of the French Embassy in Spain, Madrid, 31/7/1974, AN-CAC, Industrie, 820511/2.

“Compte-rendu d’une misión en Espagne,” 30/4/1975, AEDF, box B0000469386.

The minutes reveal the most assiduous participants: on the French side, the CEA, EDF, Technicatome, Alsthom and the Fives-Cail-Babcock group; and on the Spanish side, the JEN, ENDESA, ENHER, SENER, AUXIESA and Equipos Nucleares, AEDF, box B0000469386.

“Collaboration franco–espagnole sur les reacteurs rapides,” 3/11/1975, AEDF, box B0000469386.

Apart from Spain and France, there were other three founding members: Sweden, Belgium and Italy. Sweden withdrew from the project in 1974, being replaced by Iran. Also in early 1970s, Great Britain, The Netherlands and West Germany had formed another consortium for the same purpose: URENCO.

The rest coming, at lower prices, from the United States and (starting in 1974) from the Soviet Union. “Enrichissement européen: un calendrier chargé,” 19/9/1973, AEDF, box 891165; and “Coopération nucléaire franco–espagnole,” note from the Direction des Affaires Politiques, Sous-direction des Questions Atomiques et Spatiales, MAE, Paris, 14/6/1982, AMAE-F, EUROPE, Espagne, 1981–1985, vol. 5144.

Memo for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris, 20/10/1975, AMAE-F, EUROPE, Espagne, 1971–76, vol. 421.

Esther M. Sánchez, “Francia y la España del tardofranquismo y la transición,” pp. 847–82.

“Relations nucléaires avec l’Espagne,” memo by the Délégation Générale à l’Énergie du Ministère de l’Industrie, Paris, 17/8/1977, AMAE-F, EUROPE, Espagne, 1977–81, vol. 4367.

“Coopération nucléaire…,” AMAE-F, EUROPE, Espagne, 1981–1985, vol. 5144.

Memo by the Direction des Affaires Politiques, Sous-direction de Questions Atomiques et Spatiales, MAE, Paris, 12/11/1980, AMAE-F. EUROPE, Espagne, 1977–81, vol. 4367.

French production of military-grade plutonium stopped in 1991.