A run-of the-mill case of radiation contamination?

Nuclear power has not been getting the best press recently here in France.

In the last month alone there have been two reports of uranium leaks - one at the Tricastin plant at Bollene, just a mere 40 kilmetres from the popular tourist city of Avignon. and the second at Romans in Drôme.

Now comes news that around 100 employees at a nuclear reactor at the Tricastin site have been exposed to low doses of radiation.

The latest incident occurred as maintenance work was being carried out on Wednesday and according to officials at the centre, the contamination had "no serious consequences." All those exposed had been immediately evacuated and checked for radiation levels, and maintenance work suspended.

The doses were apparently 40 times less than the average allowed exposure and the French nuclear safety authority (l'Autorité de sûreté nucléaire, ASN) classified the incident at level "0" on a scale of 0-7.

Although it doesn't normally publish information on incidents below level "1" ASN is expected to make a report, partly perhaps because of the recent series of safety issues concerning the nuclear industry that have hit the headlines here in France.

Authorities are saying that there is no connection between Wednesday's occurrence and the leak at the site on July 8 when non-enriched uranium made its way into the water supply.

After that incident the plant in question was temporarily closed down and a ban placed on people living in nearby towns from swimming, fishing or water sports on two rivers, and farmers from using river water on their crops. That ban was lifted on Tuesday.

Last week the French environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, while insisting that all the recent incidents had been minor, ordered a complete overhaul of the way in which the nuclear industry is supervised and requested checks be made on the water tables surrounding all nuclear power plants around the country.

France is heavily dependent on nuclear energy with 78 per cent of its electricity coming from 59 plants scattered around the country.

Tricastin is a collection of sites run by French energy giants Areva and Électricité de France located in four different towns in two departements in southern France - Drôme and Vaucluse.

Both companies have come in for criticism from ASN for the way in which they have handled recent incidents and their lack of clarity in providing information to the public.

Of course the nuclear industry - particularly here in France - is at pains to point out that many of us are frequently exposed to higher doses of radiation than in each of the recent incidents - such as X-rays or even cosmic radiation in aeroplanes and natural radiation in the home.

And then there are the decades of studies showing that fossil fuel burning power plants emit more radiation than nuclear power plants.

But that will probably not allay the fears of many environmentalists and much of the general public alike, convinced that there are far better and safer ways of harnessing other (sustainable) sources of power to meet ever increasing global energy needs.

Let the debate continue.