The French branch of the environmental group said its activists observed in Dunkirk a load of recovered uranium bound for Russia.
Greenpeace France representative Pauline Boyer told AFP it was the first export of this type of uranium in three years.
“It is not illegal, but it is immoral,” Boyer said, calling on France to halt contracts with Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom, which she noted is occupying Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the south of the country.
Greenpeace activists filmed on Saturday the loading of several containers onto the Panama-flagged vessel Mikhail Dudin in Dunkirk.
The organization said the ship regularly calls at the port to unload enriched, or natural uranium loaded in St Petersburg, while the recovered uranium cargo is the first of its kind they have seen in three years.
French utility EDF in 2018 signed an EUR 600 million contract with Tenex, a Rosatom subsidiary, for the re-enrichment of spent uranium. Those activities are not covered by sanctions imposed on Russia.
In March 2024, the French government said it would seriously consider building a domestic facility to convert and re-enrich uranium.
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Source: PAP