New NP - the Areva NP subsidiary holding the Areva Group's nuclear reactor operations - has been renamed Framatome following its sale to EDF, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Assystem. Framatome is the name of a former French reactor vendor from which Areva was originally created.

Areva SA and EDF have signed definitive binding agreements setting the terms of the sale of New NP, Areva NP's nuclear reactor operations. The transaction is scheduled to close by the end of this year. The sale price for 100% of New NP's equity has been confirmed at €2.5 billion.

Construction of the Iter fusion reactor, being built at Cadarache in the south of France, is now 50% complete, the Iter Organisation has announced. The reactor - construction of which began in 2010 - is scheduled to achieve first plasma in 2025.

EDF has received permission from France's Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire to restart three reactors at the Tricastin power plant after carrying out repairs to a canal embankment. The regulator ordered the temporary shutdown of Tricastin's reactors on 27 September because of the risks of failure of a 400 metre long portion of the embankment of the Donzére-Mondragon canalin the event of an earthquake. 

A small number of fuel rods supplied to reactors in France and Switzerland have been affected by quality control issues. EDF Group said today that Areva had notified it of quality control deviations on certain rods, which meant the supplier was unable to demonstrate that quality control to substantiate that the leak tightness of those rods had been properly performed.

The French government will come up with a more "realistic" target to reduce the share of nuclear energy in the country's electricity generation, Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot told a news conference in Paris today.

A contract to recover and encapsulate low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste at the Marcoule nuclear research site has been awarded to Areva Projets SAS and the Wood Group by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. The contract covers some 50 tonnes of waste resulting from the treatment of fuels used in former plutonium-producing reactors there.

EDF's Bugey nuclear power plant in eastern France has demonstrated a commitment to safety, an expert team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has concluded. However, the mission identified areas for further improvement.

Recent International Atomic Energy Agency missions have found commitment to safety by France's nuclear safety regulator and the operator of a Norwegian research reactor. The agency, which last week concluded a nuclear security advisory mission to Germany, also said Poland is committed to the safe management of radioactive waste.

The mechanical properties of the vessel head and bottom head of the Flamanville 3 EPR reactor pressure vessel are adequate and are therefore serviceable, the French nuclear regulator has concluded. However, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) still requires the vessel head to be replaced by the end of 2024.

EDF is preparing for the next stage of system performance testing at the Flamanville EPR, with a view to the fuel loading and reactor start-up at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018. The company has thus confirmed its roadmap for Flamanville 3 drawn up in September 2015 and that the project cost is set at €10.5 billion (2015 rate, excluding interim interest).

A new nuclear training centre has been inaugurated by Trihom, a training organisation jointly owned by New Areva and Engie's industrial maintenance subsidiary Endel. The new centre - in Equeurdreville-Hainneville, Normandy - is the largest nuclear training centre in France.