"From March 2012 to October 2019, (alone at first and with Helen toward the end), I made what you might call a kind of "Tour de France" by bike - 20,500 km over twenty months on the road.
The idea from the beginning was to see a bit of the country and meet its inhabitants, to continue the research started in Spain on agriculture a few years earlier and begin a report on energy production by way of the country's nuclear power plants for example, etc.
In June 2013 I was in Flamanville, in la Manche, where I stayed for about a dozen days to photograph the nuclear site and that of Areva (now renamed Orano) in La Hague not far away.
Throughout this time I kept a daily journal. Here is an extract:
« Friday 28 June 2013, Les Pieux, Manche
Progress report of my stay near the Flamanville nuclear power plant and the EPR (Réacteur pressurisé européen) construction site.
- Tendonitis in the knee. Aching in the ribs caused by tendons in right knee (I know for an ex-nurse the diagnosis is iffy). I call my friend, a great Parisian photographer (and ex-kinéologist) and he tells me that there is nothing to do but rest. And he adds: "you're getting old Thomas" which gives me a shot I must say.
- I've been on a bender with my hosts. During the evening I thought at times that we were "Lords" as in the movie "A Monkey in Winter", him taking the role of Jean Gabin and I that of Belmondo. Well in the end we did not fart at the power plant but we very well might have!
- An outing at sea, again with my hosts in the early morning after our dinner. Against all odds I'm not seasick, it may be true that it's a good plan to be a little inebriated on a boat. There, I can take pictures of the nuclear site and even caught 8 mackerel (not to boast but more than my two acolytes together!).
- I fight for 4 or 5 days to take pictures of the EPR contstrction site, with the biggest crane of the world "Big Benny" that will soon be laying the dome of the reactor. Here is an exchange of emails:
Re: Request for Authorization to Photograph EPR
Dear Madame ...,
I'm Thomas Chassaing, a professional photographer distributed by SIPA Press out of Paris.
For several months I have been on a bike tour around France concentrating on the theme of energy. I would be very interested in taking some photos of the EPR shipworks during the next few days.
Please contact me, preferably by phone. My number is: 06 36 32 13 16
Would be very grateful to hear from you. Sincere best regards
Dear Sir,
We have a contract with a professional photographer with whom we are entirely satisfied, and who can supply to anyone interested, via EDF's media library, photos of the site since the beginning of construction.
Beyond that our project does not seek to be photographed for commercial means or publication, therefore we do not grant your request.
Cordially yours
It's good that they answer me but are they not lying to my face? How is it possible that there will be no journalists present at the time of the installation of the dome which is coming up very soon? Moreover, I have already seen teams preparing for this very purpose. Very well, to be brief ...
- Photograph the construction site of the Flamanville bricklayer "Mason" who is building a stone wall on a site commemorating Marcel Paul directly in front of the EPR construction site. There is already a monument to this man who, by the way, nobody knows here. I think I read about it in a Charlie Hebdo story written by Fabrice Nicolino. As I remember, for them he is a "nucleocrat" who first launched, in the greatest secrecy, French nuclear energy at the time of General de Gaulle.
Back home in early August 2013, when I looked again at Charlie's file (1) I could see once again the extent of my ignorance. It was not Marcel Paul but Pierre Guillaumat who was mentioned. I had never heard of him before either, but the drawing by the late Honoré, which depicts in the foreground of a landscape of nuclear power plants a bust placed on a pedestal with the inscription "To Pierre Guillaumat La Nucléocratie reconnaissante", misled me.
After a little research, I discovered that Marcel Paul, "resistance fighter during the Second World War, trade unionist and communist activist (...) Minister of Industrial Production in Charles de Gaulle's government, proposed the nationalization of energy and organized the creation of ED-GDF in 1946." (2) while "from 1964 to 1965, Guillaumat was president of EDF, a company that he associated with the CEA programmes" (the Atomic Energy Commission). (3)
- Try to see Didier Anger and his wife Paulette. Also in the Charlie file already mentioned, there is a portrait of these ""historical actors"" of the anti-nuc movement. Go home several times to their house but it is always closed.
- Sleep one night at the home of two very cordial nurses. The husband is a nurse and works for the Bon Sauveur Foundation near Cherbourg. This establishes a link between us (I too was a "Bon Sauveur" but in Albi). The son, very nice, is studying musicology (masters level). His thesis topic: surrealism in music today. Would be curious to read that.
- Spend two nights at the farmyard of two other charming hosts. They live with their two young children in a mobile home next door. (…)
Now, I should take photographs of subcontractors at the power plant and the EPR construction workers. I do not know if I'm going to have enough stamina. My painful knee slows me down with all the climbing and descending there. My expectations are low and especially I think that I may not pass muster here, I do not really have the profile: the boss of a PMU cafe where I go every day calls me, I do not know why, Crocodile Dundee. Maybe I'd have to buy a little suit and carry around a briefcase like many here or disguise myself as a Manpower style worker to blend in with the decor. It is true that guys who ride a bike with saddlebags are not plentiful in the area.
Les Pieux, Sunday 30 June 2013
Yesterday was, I think, a good day photographically speaking. In the morning, I immortalized my hosts in their mobile home. At night they put up cardboard sheets to protect themselves from the cold, it will surely make some interesting photos for my subjects (EDF-fuel poverty) and (housing-alternative housing). The family bought a farm in ruins and until they have done the work, they live in a mobile home rather well designed.
The afternoon, at Les Pieux, in the former dormitory campground for EPR construction workers, I can photograph part of the Portuguese community in and around their mobile homes. I get there with my bike and explain my intentions. They ask me to call the base manager first for permission. OK. Then I answer questions of all kinds in Spanish (married?, what do I think of nuclear power?, how many km on my bike? ...) and drink and eat everything they offer me (whiskey, white wine, red wine , sardines, grilled sausages, etc.).
Around 4:00 pm I leave them, because they are all tired (in the week they do not rest on the job then on the weekends they are in "descanso" mode), to see what's going on at the Flamanville campsite.
There I immediately hook up with a Portuguese formworker who has been working for 6 years on the EPR site. From one of its two caravans decorated in the colors of Portugal I can hear music (reggae, blues) so it's easy to approach. We laugh a lot during the little photo shoot (must say that I am a little rattled).
Shortly after, the neighbors in the mobile home next door celebrate a birthday and we are naturally invited: "that's the Portuguese," they say hilarious. Suddenly, again: sardines, sausages, white wine, red wine, beer, and more cakes, champagne and soup at the very end! I do some photos, I hope that at least to restore the atmosphere.
On the way back to the farm of my hosts, I think of my new friend. His kindness touched me. I liked him right away with his look like Groucho Marx. Worker on all the construction sites around Europe for 20 years, he lives the year away from his wife and son who stay in their country. It's hard not to imagine this kind of sacrifice. Well, I do not know everything and I sincerely hope that I'm wrong in my impression.
Sunday 30 June 2013
Return today to the two subcontractor's campsites. At Pieux I see the whole team of Portuguese who are still in "descanso" mode and I photograph some Ukrainian newcomers, they in "Nasdravé"! I do not really want to drink today but I have no choice if I want to take some pictures.
There is also a young Portuguese man who speaks French well and who explains a few things to me. In fact a big french company contacted the Portuguese company WSP to do electrical work and assembly of cable networks on the EPR site. The workers are usually there to work 12 weeks (5 working days per week) then after they are entitled to 7 days of rest; which leaves them a little more than a week to rest in the country before returning to work. For the two in the mobile homes living conditions "are not bad objectively" he told me but they are often used to much better on other sites: hotel room, bed and breakfast ...
At the Flamanville campsite I see my new friend. Once again he impresses me with his kindness and intelligence. I show him my photos of Spain and a good part of the African stuff and he immediately grasps my point and makes a lot of relevant comments.
Wednesday 3 July 2013, Flamanville
Quiet day today again. I'm just changing campgrounds (back to Flamanville) because I decided to give my knee a day to recover. At the monument to Marcel Paul I find my friendly mason who continues to build his wall and who will probably be able to meet the deadline! I take this opportunity to make some more photos because from here you see all the EPR site and because "the illustrious man", who nobody knows here, is still the founder of EDF, as they wrote on the stele. As the provisional title of this report is (Électricité 2 France) we might as well get a good shot of the scene.
In the evening I spend a pleasant moment with my Portuguese friend, always so cool (he listening to "Volontaire" de Bashung when I arrive). He explains travel bonuses and I am glad to hear that he too is benefiting. Otherwise in this campsite, it's like in Siouville. Many stare at you when you meet and from 7 o'clock on it is TV.
Thursday 4 July 2013, Vauville
"Go home with your shitty bike" These are the first words I hear this morning. They come from the mouths of children (from 3 to 5 years old), those of my camping neighbors who give money to the EPR (as unfriendly as their kids by the way). So I say that things are not going well here! "Go toto, as soon as the tent is dry (to top it off it rained all night and all my things are wet). And too bad for your knee, if you're too sore you'll have to walk next to the bike but you have to tear yourself away from here ..."
So I walk all day, in a thick fog and of course with a morale close to zero. See all these guys "sacrificing themselves" as they say to earn 4,000 euros / month (grouching about travel allowances) wears me out. And I'm not even talking about the EPR itself with the cost overruns and delays of which the press informs us quite frequently and to which are added suspicions of illegal jobs.
Although in the end I may have done a good job, I do not know if it will be a consolation, a compensation for exposing myself to all this. »
Links consulted on June 18, 2021 :
(1) http://journeesdetudes.org/atomescrochus/recherche/Charlie-Hebdo.pdf
(2) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Paul
(3) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Guillaumat "
"From March 2012 to October 2019, (alone at first and with Helen toward the end), I made what you might call a kind of "Tour de France" by bike - 20,500 km over twenty months on the road.
The idea from the beginning was to see a bit of the country and meet its inhabitants, to continue the research started in Spain on agriculture a few years earlier and begin a report on energy production by way of the country's nuclear power plants for example, etc.
In June 2013 I was in Flamanville, in la Manche, where I stayed for about a dozen days to photograph the nuclear site and that of Areva (now renamed Orano) in La Hague not far away.
Throughout this time I kept a daily journal. Here is an extract:
« Friday 28 June 2013, Les Pieux, Manche
Progress report of my stay near the Flamanville nuclear power plant and the EPR (Réacteur pressurisé européen) construction site.
- Tendonitis in the knee. Aching in the ribs caused by tendons in right knee (I know for an ex-nurse the diagnosis is iffy). I call my friend, a great Parisian photographer (and ex-kinéologist) and he tells me that there is nothing to do but rest. And he adds: "you're getting old Thomas" which gives me a shot I must say.
- I've been on a bender with my hosts. During the evening I thought at times that we were "Lords" as in the movie "A Monkey in Winter", him taking the role of Jean Gabin and I that of Belmondo. Well in the end we did not fart at the power plant but we very well might have!