French Firms Face New Fears Over Reactors

BY GERALDINE AMIEL AND GUY CHAZAN

PARIS—France, one of the world's nuclear powers, moved quickly to try to reassure the world and its own people that its nuclear plants were safe, as Japan's unfolding crisis threw a wrench in a much-vaunted global nuclear renaissance.
Nuclear energy accounts for around 80% of France's electricity output, and the country has for decades invested money and manpower to build state-of-the-art nuclear plants, including so-called third-generation reactors that are considered among the world's safest and most advanced.
Buoyed by recent renewed interest in nuclear energy, companies such as France's Areva SA and Électricité de France SA—two of the industry's biggest ...