The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has bucked the anti-nuclear trend following Japan's Fukushima disaster by pledging €1bn of investment in atomic power.

Despite growing worldwide concern about the safety of nuclear plants, Sarkozy said the moratorium on new nuclear reactors adopted by certain countries since the Japanese nuclear crisis in March "makes no sense".

"There is no alternative to nuclear energy today," he told journalists on Monday. [...]

Sarkozy said France was known to be "considerably ahead" of other countries in terms of atomic power technology and safety.

"Our power stations are more expensive because they are safer," he said.

Yeah right. And I thought it was because the fkuced up the specs...

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}