HLW 管理政策とフランスの CNDP の国民的討論：
熟議民主主義はなぜ社会的合意に「失敗」したのか
HLW Mana gement a nd Public debate through the CNDP in France: Why Deliberative Democracy Has Failed Social Consensus Building○ CHOI Yunhee * ・ 松 岡

俊 二 **Yunhee CHOI, Shunji MATSUOKA

１．Introduction
In France, the National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP) provides a platform fordeliberative participation for all infrastructure projects of more than 300 million euros. Since theCNDP was established in 1997 based on the Barnier Law in 1 995, there have been three publicdebates concerning radioactive waste management, which include 1) General option on themanagement of high-level a nd long-lived intermediate level between 2005 and 2006; 2) the Cigéo
project-creation of a deep reversible r epository of radioactive waste in Meuse/Haute -Marne in2013; and 3) National Pla n for the Ma nagement of radioactive materials and waste (PNGMDR)
which is currently proceeding. Table 1 briefly illustrates the procedure of the CNDP.
Since the moratorium of the highlevel of radioactive waste (HLW)
management policy in 1990, publicparticipation,

whichtransparentandisopen,

deliberative,

concerning the HLW issue has bee nemphasized (Callon et al. 2001).
Therefore, the first CNDP public
Table 1. The procedure of public debate through the CNDP
(Source : CNDP)

debateontheoption

for

HLW

management, which conducted before
presenting the bill to parliament i n

2006, was considered as an innova tive change in the field of the nuclear industry (Lehtonen 2010).
The overall outcome of the debate evaluated positively among the participants. Even some sa ythat the public debate through the CNDP revealed the social power of deliberation as it produceda new idea, which is ‘perma nent surface storage’ as an opti on (Lehtonen 2010).

*早 稲 田 大 学 ア ジ ア 太 平 洋 研 究 科 ・ 院 、 〒 169-0051 東 京 都 新 宿 区 西 早 稲 田 1-21-1、 Tel. 0906481-0960 E-mail yunhee.ch oi@moe gi.waseda.jp** 早 稲 田 大 学 ア ジ ア 太 平 洋 研 究 科1Despite having a good quality of deliberation on the issues concerning the HLW management,
however, France shows the lowest level of agreement among the EU members about the dee punderground disposal (Eurobarometer 2008), which was adop ted as a national option for HLW
management in 2006. Furthermore, social conflict over the project has amplified in Bure, wherethe Cigéo project researches deep geological disposal, while environmental associations boycotted
the second public debate in 2013. The lack of policy uptake of the positive outcome of thedeliberation has been pointed out as one of the backgrounds of difficulties in social consensus
building over the issue (Lehtonen 2010).
Under the given situation, the current study postulates that existing difficulties in socia lconsensus building on HLW ma na gement even after implementing public deliberation process
through the CNDP is rooted in the institutional design of implementing deliberative participation
within the existing institutional fra mework of representative democracy.
2. Deliberative democracy vs. Representative democracy
Public participation in decision making w ithin the existing framework of representative
democracy has e mpha sized to deal with difficulties of HLW management entailing a high level ofrisks and uncertainty in technology for a long time. Deliberative democracy, which has emerged
to complement representative democracy (Papadopoulos & Warin 2007), expected to increasesocial acceptance by reducing social conflicts over the controversial issue through discussion
among a broader range of public participation (Blondiaux & Sintomer 2002; Callon et al. 200 1).
Meanwhile, the institutional design of such participatory model is an important point to consider
as it functions within the representative democracy (Fung 2003; Simon 1998).
The type of deliberative participation in terms of purpose could be varied f rom educating thelay public to help to form a nd articulate their opinion to incorporating direct citizen voices int o
the determination of policy a gendas (Fung 2003). Furthermore, depending on the goal of public
participation, such platfor m for deliberatio n should be thoroughly designed from the outset. InFrance, the social power relations a mong the prominent actors at the macro level influenced thefunction of the CNDP (Lehtonen 2010; Barthe 2002). Based on this, the current study attempts t oanalyze the institutiona l design of the CNDP from the perspective of deliberative democracy a nd
representative de mocracy.
3. Conclusion
The French case shows that the institutional design of deliberative participation is essentialfor HLW management considering the nature of HLW, which could have an impact on human andenvironment over a superhuma n timescale. Furthermore, thorough con sideration of public value
and opinion addressing ethica l issues in the decision - making process is necessary to influence onsocial consensus building.