A court has forbidden Cogema to unload spent nuclear fuel from a ship at the port of Cherbourg. The court action, brought by Greenpeace, ruled that Cogema did not have the required permission to treat the fuel at its reprocessing plant in La Hague.
The spent fuel, which came from an Australian research reactor, was due to be returned by 2015. However environmentalists say that this contravenes French law, which forbids the long-term storage of foreign nuclear waste. Cogema has appealed against the decision, maintaining that it has permission to transport, unload and keep the material.