Électricité de France (EDF) is confident of British political support to build nuclear reactors in southwest England regardless of who wins a May 7 general election.

Thousands of people filled the streets of five French cities today to protest plans to build the next generation of nuclear reactors – fuel-efficient but seen by anti-nuclear activists as a relaunching of France’s nuclear energy programme.

The EU today gave France the green light for a new atomic power reactor that will be a model for the next generation of nuclear power stations.

France has chosen a Normandy coastal town as the site for the first in a new generation of nuclear power plants.