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Lessons From France’s Nuclear Program
ROBIN GASTER | SEPTEMBER 2025
France has embarked on an ambitious program to build at least six new large nuclear reactors,
applying lessons from recent overruns and delays. While success is far from guaranteed, there are
important lessons for the United States as it seeks to jump-start its own nuclear sector through
recent ambitious executive orders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
A U.S. nuclear strategy must have strong bipartisan support. Nuclear designs often take
decades, and private investors need certainty. We cannot afford to change the strategy
with every new administration.
The United States cannot and should not replicate France’s highly centralized
government structure and dependence on EDF as a single national champion for energy.
It must find alternative solutions to the functional problems this model addresses.
Existing fragmented government structures—both inside and beyond DOE—must be
systematically reorganized into a coherent and consistent whole that is able to demand
(and provide) full accountability and oversight.
A large order book is the key to cost reduction—but will be hard to build in the United
States, where other sources of energy are highly competitive, there is no national security
reason to build nuclear (unlike in France), and markets are fragmented.
France is highly focused on large reactors, but that is a historical legacy, not a well-
grounded strategy. U.S. advantages in SMRs could offer a much better alternative.
Construction support can be provided through federal loans at cost, but further de-risking
is needed to encourage private investment in extremely long-range and high-risk projects.
The U.S. model of providing tax credits as effectively indefinite operating subsidies is
flawed. There are better alternatives that connect energy sources to the market more
effectively, such as contracts for difference.
