A few bolts less for an EHV pylon near Flamanville
(Indymedia Nantes, September 30, 2024)

The EPR nuclear reactor in Flamanville, on which work which begun in 2006, is nearing completion and could be connected to the power grid this autumn. This step, known as “coupling”, is decisive for making what would then be France’s most powerful nuclear reactor operational. The Flamanville EPR and the announced future EPR2 reactors (Penly 3 and 4, Gravelines 7 and 8, Le Bugey 6 and 7) add to the 56 reactors currently operating in France, not counting the nuclear reactors used to propel military submarines and an aircraft carrier, and the few research reactors in service.

If the Flamanville EPR is successfully made operational, it will considerably strengthen the power of the French nuclear state. Not only in terms of the quantity of energy produced, which will fuel capitalist production, the war economy and consumer society, but also in terms of the influence it will have on the propaganda of the supporters of the nuclear order. Because this EPR project in France, despite the successive technical failures, delays and extra costs it has faced, must succeed at all costs in order to keep afloat the idea of progress it is meant to convey. For EDF (Électricité de France), Framatome et al., regardless of the fiasco of the Olkiluoto EPR in Finland, the radioactive contamination of EPRs 1 and 2 in Taishan, China, and the numerous forms of resistance to the project, the only possible outcome is the fiction of a historic industrial success. All the more so in the context of a nuclearist offensive on all fronts.

So a few weeks ago, on a starry night (when unfortunately we saw more satellites than shooting stars), we weakened the Cotentin-Maine EHV line that runs from the Flamanville nuclear reactors. We removed bolts from a pylon to the point of causing vibrations in the structure. To do this, we used a 46 mm L-type socket wrench (with a steel power bar to increase the force), a crescent wrench (without a power bar) and WD40.

There are pylons and EHV lines, the highways of electricity, everywhere. And not just for nuclear power plants: they’re also used to transport so-called “renewable” forms of energy (wind power, solar…), which help to produce ever more electricity and power the techno-industrial society. All this energy powers the machines that control us, surveil us, make us work, distract us and impose a way of life on us.

“When militant ecologists, who are today focused on nuclear power, take EHV lines into their crosshairs, the situation is likely to be serious, because while nuclear power plants can be protected by barbed wire and possibly platoons of the national police, pylons cannot.” Excerpt from a confidential EDF document, April 1983

Disruptive elements in resistance

There are a number of resources available for tackling pylon targets:

– Pylon! Pylon! Fire, Fire! (2024)
– Communique #2: Sabotage of an extra-high voltage pylon in France (2023)
– How to take down pylons? (1988)
– The Threat Library brochures (No trace project, 2024)
– DNA You Say? Burn Everything to Burn Longer: A Guide to Leaving No Traces (2024 version)
– Le dépylonnage pour les nuls video (2011)

– Noël avant l’heure video (2013)