4. Could such an accident happen in France?

The chemical treatment process is different in France. It is the PUREX process, based on the separation and purification of uranium and plutonium by liquid-liquid extraction, the solvent used being a 30% by volume mixture of tributyl phosphate diluted in a long-chain alkane.

One might wonder about an "analogous risk" to that of Mayak, in operations involving a mixture of organic products and concentrated nitric solutions.

To eliminate this risk, the concentration of fission product...