The French Nuclear Policy Council has decided to launch a program to close the nuclear fuel cycle, which is supposed to allow the country to completely abandon the import of natural uranium from Russia by 2100. The decision was made against the backdrop of Emmanuel Macron's statement that France is still dependent on Russia in the supply of uranium.
The Council claims that the consideration of the issue of starting the construction of the first fast neutron reactor will begin by 2030. Paris intends to attract European and international investments.
France is extremely dependent on Russian uranium, since its nuclear energy (which provides more than 86% of the country's electricity generation) cannot do without imports — there has been no uranium mining in France since 2001. Russian uranium is used to produce fuel assemblies for nuclear power plants, as well as to reprocess spent nuclear fuel at the world's only plant in Russia (in Seversk).
Currently, France remains one of the largest importers of uranium: in 2025, Russia accounted for 24% of all enriched uranium imports into the country, but even when France buys it in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan, it passes through the Russian Federation under the control of Rosatom structures. At the same time, from January 2023 to June 2024, France became the most dependent on Russian uranium among unfriendly countries — 60.5% of all enriched uranium supplies (for 428.6 million dollars) came from Russia.