Nuclear Restart Progress Report — EPR2 Construction Milestones and Supply Chain Readiness

Executive Summary

France’s nuclear restart program — the most ambitious civil nuclear construction effort in Western Europe since the 1980s — has reached a critical inflection point in early 2026. President Macron’s February 2022 Belfort speech committed France to building six EPR2 reactors (with an option for eight more), extending the operational life of the existing 56-reactor fleet, and restoring the industrial capacity that decades of underinvestment had eroded. Four years into execution, the program has cleared major regulatory and engineering hurdles but faces persistent workforce bottlenecks, supply chain qualification delays, and a fiscal environment that puts pressure on the estimated EUR 51.7 billion total investment envelope. This briefing provides a granular assessment of where each workstream stands as of March 2026, quantifies progress against the government’s own milestones, and identifies the risks that could derail the timeline.

The headline finding: the first pair of EPR2 reactors at Penly (Seine-Maritime) remain on track for concrete pouring in late 2027, but the supply chain requalification effort — particularly for large forgings and reactor pressure vessel components — is running approximately nine months behind the schedule EDF presented to the Assemblee nationale in June 2024. Workforce recruitment has met 72 percent of its 2026 target, a meaningful improvement over the 58 percent achieved by end-2024 but still insufficient to support parallel construction at multiple sites without schedule risk.

Background: The Belfort Commitment and Its Evolution

On 10 February 2022, at a turbine manufacturing facility in Belfort operated by GE (now GE Vernova), President Macron announced what he called “the renaissance of French nuclear power.” The commitment had three pillars:

1. New-build program: Six EPR2 reactors at three sites — Penly (two units), Gravelines (two units), and either Bugey or Tricastin (two units) — with the first unit operational by 2035-2037.
2. Life extension (Grand Carenage): Investment of EUR 66 billion (2020 euros) to extend the existing fleet from 40 to 60 years of operation, maintaining France’s installed nuclear capacity of 61.4 GW.
3. Industrial reconstitution: Rebuilding the nuclear supply chain, which had lost an estimated 30,000 skilled workers and dozens of qualified suppliers between 2012 and 2022 following the Hollande government’s decision to cap nuclear at 50 percent of the electricity mix.

The Loi d’Acceleration du Nucleaire, adopted on 22 June 2023, streamlined permitting by eliminating the requirement for a separate public debate (debat public) for reactors built on existing nuclear sites. This shaved an estimated 18-24 months off the pre-construction timeline. A follow-on decree of 11 January 2024 designated Penly as the first EPR2 site and granted EDF the autorisation de creation for Units 1 and 2.

EPR2 Design Status and Licensing

The EPR2 is a simplified evolution of the EPR design, incorporating lessons from the Flamanville-3 debacle (17 years of construction, EUR 19.1 billion in costs versus the original EUR 3.3 billion estimate). Key design simplifications include:

The Autorite de surete nucleaire (ASN) — which will be merged with the Institut de radioprotection et de surete nucleaire (IRSN) into a single authority effective 1 January 2025 under the Loi du 21 mai 2024 — issued its preliminary safety assessment (avis) for the EPR2 generic design on 17 January 2025. The assessment was broadly favorable but flagged 34 technical points requiring resolution before the autorisation de mise en service (operating license) can be granted. The most significant concern relates to the EPR2’s approach to severe accident management, specifically the design of the core catcher and its interaction with the basemat cooling system under beyond-design-basis scenarios.

EDF’s nuclear engineering division (EDVANCE, a joint subsidiary with Framatome) submitted its responses to 28 of the 34 points by December 2025. The remaining six — all related to seismic qualification of the reactor building internal structures — are expected to be resolved by Q2 2026, according to EDF’s latest schedule update presented to the Commission nationale d’evaluation du financement des charges de demantelement nucleaire on 5 February 2026.

Construction Progress at Penly

Site Preparation and Early Works

Major earthworks at Penly began on 2 January 2024, following the issuance of the autorisation de creation. The scope of early works includes:

• Excavation: 3.2 million cubic meters of chalk and clay removed to create the reactor building platforms. Completed September 2024, three weeks ahead of schedule.
• Marine works: Construction of the new cooling water intake and discharge tunnels, extending 1,200 meters into the English Channel. The tunnel boring machine (TBM) was launched on 15 March 2025 and had reached 780 meters by 1 March 2026 — approximately 65 percent of the total distance.
• Temporary facilities: Concrete batch plants (three units, combined capacity 400 m3/hour), rebar fabrication yards, and worker accommodation for 4,500 construction personnel. Fully operational since May 2025.
• Nuclear island basemat preparation: Leveling and compaction of the reactor building foundation area. Completed for Unit 1 in November 2025. Unit 2 preparation is 60 percent complete as of March 2026.

Critical Path to First Concrete

The critical-path milestone is “first nuclear concrete” — the pouring of the basemat for the reactor building of Unit 1. EDF’s current schedule targets Q4 2027 for this milestone, which requires completion of:

1. Detailed design freeze for the nuclear island civil structures (target: September 2026)
2. ASN approval of the site-specific safety case supplement (target: Q2 2027)
3. Completion of the pre-stressing tendon anchorage system embedded in the basemat (target: Q3 2027)

As of March 2026, the design freeze is proceeding on schedule but remains dependent on resolution of the six outstanding ASN technical points noted above. Any delay in the seismic qualification package would cascade directly into the first-concrete date.

Workforce Deployment

The 3,800 workers currently on-site at Penly represent the early works and pre-construction phase. The surge to 5,200 is expected in H2 2026 as structural concrete work begins on the conventional island and auxiliary buildings. EDF’s Academie des Metiers du Nucleaire, established in Cherbourg in September 2023, has graduated 1,840 trainees through its accelerated 6-month programs, but attrition rates (estimated at 18 percent within the first year) suggest that gross training throughput needs to increase by approximately 30 percent to meet net workforce targets.

Supply Chain Requalification

The nuclear supply chain challenge is arguably the program’s greatest risk. Between 2015 and 2022, France lost critical industrial capacity:

• Framatome Le Creusot: The forge that produces reactor pressure vessel (RPV) components was placed under enhanced ASN surveillance following the carbon segregation scandal of 2015-2016. Remediation investments of EUR 130 million have restored production capability, but throughput remains constrained. Le Creusot delivered the first EPR2 steam generator shell forgings in October 2025 — nine months later than originally planned.
• Framatome Romans-sur-Isere: The fuel fabrication facility is operating at capacity to support both the existing fleet and new-build requirements. A EUR 80 million expansion, announced in March 2024, will increase enriched uranium fuel assembly production from 820 to 1,100 assemblies per year by 2028.
• Orano Tricastin: The Georges Besse II enrichment plant is fully operational with a separative work capacity of 7.5 million SWU/year. Orano announced on 12 December 2025 that it would invest EUR 1.3 billion to expand capacity to 11 million SWU/year by 2030, partly in response to European utilities’ desire to reduce dependence on Russian-origin enrichment services (Rosatom’s Tenex subsidiary still supplied approximately 25 percent of EU enrichment needs in 2024).

Qualified Supplier Base

EDF’s supply chain mapping exercise, completed in September 2024, identified 1,247 companies in the French nuclear supply chain, of which 389 hold nuclear-grade qualifications (certifications CEFRI, ISO 19443, or RCC-M). The target is to have 520 qualified suppliers by end-2027 to support the Penly construction peak. Current status:

The 98-supplier gap is concentrated in pressure equipment and mechanical components — precisely the categories with the longest qualification lead times (18-24 months). The Groupement des industriels francais de l’energie nucleaire (GIFEN), the industry association representing 550 nuclear suppliers, launched a EUR 45 million supplier development program in January 2025 funded jointly by the state (via France 2030), EDF, and Framatome. By March 2026, 67 companies had entered the qualification pipeline through this program, but only 23 had completed the full certification process.

Gravelines and the Second Pair

The Gravelines site (Nord) is designated for EPR2 Units 3 and 4. Key milestones:

• Public inquiry (enquete publique): Completed 15 September - 15 November 2025. The commissaire enqueteur issued a favorable opinion with reservations on 22 January 2026, primarily concerning thermal discharge impacts on the already-warm North Sea coastal waters.
• Autorisation de creation: Application submitted by EDF on 1 December 2025. Expected issuance: Q3-Q4 2026.
• Site preparation: Preliminary geotechnical surveys completed. Major earthworks planned to begin Q1 2027.
• First nuclear concrete: Targeted for 2030, approximately 30 months after Penly Unit 1.

Gravelines presents unique challenges: the site already hosts six 910 MWe reactors (the largest nuclear power station in Western Europe by number of units), and the construction of two EPR2s must be managed without disrupting operations at the existing plant, which generated 38.2 TWh in 2025 — approximately 10 percent of France’s total nuclear output.

Grand Carenage: Existing Fleet Life Extension

The Grand Carenage program — the systematic refurbishment of the existing 56-reactor fleet for life extension to 60 years — is proceeding in parallel with new-build. As of March 2026:

The Grand Carenage budget has been revised upward from EUR 50 billion (2014 estimate) to EUR 66 billion (2022 estimate) to EUR 74.8 billion (2025 estimate, according to the Cour des comptes report of 14 March 2025). The cost increase reflects inflation, expanded scope (post-Fukushima safety upgrades, cybersecurity hardening, climate adaptation measures for cooling systems), and the higher-than-expected cost of replacing steam generators at the 1300 MWe units.

Financial Architecture

The financing of the nuclear restart program remains one of the most complex aspects of France’s energy policy. Key financial parameters:

• EDF’s financial position: Following the EUR 9.7 billion renationalization completed on 8 June 2023 (at EUR 12 per share), EDF’s net debt stood at EUR 54.2 billion at end-2025, down from EUR 64.5 billion at end-2022. The improvement reflects higher electricity prices (EDF’s average realized price was EUR 68/MWh in 2025 versus EUR 49/MWh in 2021) and the end of the bouclier tarifaire (tariff shield) energy price cap.
• EPR2 financing: The EUR 51.7 billion program cost (six units) will be financed through a combination of EDF cash flow, green bonds (EDF issued EUR 3.5 billion in nuclear-labeled green bonds in November 2025 under the EU Taxonomy’s inclusion of nuclear as a sustainable activity), and a potential state guarantee mechanism currently under discussion with the European Commission’s DG Competition.
• Regulated asset base (RAB) model: The government’s preferred financing model, modeled on the UK’s RAB approach used for Sizewell C, would allow EDF to recover construction costs through regulated electricity tariffs during the build phase, reducing financing risk and lowering the weighted average cost of capital. Legislation enabling the RAB model was included in the Loi de programmation energetique, which was adopted by the Assemblee nationale on 18 December 2025 after a contentious 49.3 procedure.

International Context and Competition

France’s nuclear restart does not occur in a vacuum. Several countries are pursuing parallel programs that compete for the same scarce resources — specialized welders, nuclear-grade steel, heavy-lift cranes, and experienced project management personnel:

• United Kingdom: Hinkley Point C (two EPR units) remains under construction with an expected completion date of 2029-2031 for Unit 1. Sizewell C received its development consent order in July 2022 and final investment decision in November 2024. Both projects draw on the same Framatome/EDF supply chain as the French EPR2 program.
• Poland: Westinghouse’s AP1000 was selected for the Choczewo site in October 2023. Construction is expected to begin in 2028. While this uses American technology, it competes for European construction labor and nuclear-grade concrete suppliers.
• Czech Republic: Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) was selected in July 2024 to build up to four APR-1400 units at Dukovany. The EUR 18 billion contract reduces competitive pressure on the Framatome supply chain but increases demand for European nuclear workforce training capacity.
• Sweden: Vattenfall announced in November 2025 that it would pursue new nuclear construction, potentially selecting the EPR2 design. If confirmed, this would be a significant export success for the French nuclear industry but would further strain the supply chain.

Risk Assessment

Flamanville-3: The Bellwether

Flamanville-3 achieved grid connection on 21 December 2024 after 17 years of construction. By March 2026, the reactor had operated for approximately 11 months, generating 10.2 TWh — a load factor of approximately 71 percent, which is within the expected range for the first operating cycle. EDF expects to complete the first planned outage (visite partielle) in Q2 2026, during which the reactor will undergo its first fuel reload and scheduled inspections. The performance of Flamanville-3 during its first full operating cycle is being closely watched by ASN, EDF, and international observers as a bellwether for EPR technology reliability and, by extension, for the credibility of the EPR2 program.

Outlook: 12-Month Assessment

The next 12 months will be decisive for the EPR2 program. The key milestones to watch:

1. Q2 2026: Resolution of outstanding ASN technical points on seismic qualification — a gate for the detailed design freeze.
2. Q3 2026: Autorisation de creation for Gravelines Units 3 and 4 — confirmation that the second site is proceeding on schedule.
3. Q4 2026: Selection of the third EPR2 site (Bugey or Tricastin) — a politically sensitive decision that will signal commitment to the full six-unit program.
4. Throughout 2026: Supply chain qualification rate — the pipeline of 67 companies needs to accelerate to close the 98-supplier gap before the Penly construction peak.

The central scenario remains that France will pour first nuclear concrete at Penly in Q4 2027 and deliver the first EPR2 megawatt-hour to the grid between 2035 and 2037. The program is better managed, better financed, and better supported politically than at any point since the Messmer Plan of 1974. But the ghost of Flamanville — the reminder of what happens when ambition outpaces industrial capability — continues to haunt every schedule update and every quarterly review. The margin for error is narrow, the stakes are enormous, and the next 12 months will reveal whether France’s nuclear renaissance is real or rhetorical.

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