Paris (Platts)--8Mar2010/559 am EST/1059 GMT

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Monday on the international community to "require" international financing institutions to finance civil nuclear power projects, calling it a "scandal" that the World Bank and other development banks refuse to finance nuclear projects in developing countries.

Sarkozy said that the refusal of international financing institutions to support new nuclear build in countries with growing energy needs "amounts to condemning these countries to more expensive and more polluting energy sources."

In an address to an international conference in Paris, Sarkozy said it was also a "scandal" that countries that want to build nuclear power plants cannot benefit from carbon credits in the framework of the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto climate change treaty.

He was supported on that point by OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria, who said the exclusion of nuclear from the Kyoto Protocol and its successors must be "dropped."

Sarkozy scored those who argue that developing countries are unfit for safety reasons to build and operate nuclear plants, calling that a "sign of disdain" that is "intolerable." "Nuclear accidents have happened in the North" with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island," he observed. In that respect, he said, "The North shouldn't give lessons to anyone."

Addressing over 1,000 participants from governments, industry and research at the International Conference for Access to Civil Nuclear Energy, Sarkozy further proposed that the International Atomic Energy Agency establish an independent panel to officially rate the safety level of nuclear power reactor designs currently on the market, saying "today, the only classification on the market is the criterion of price."

In December, France's flagship nuclear vendor Areva lost a bid to supply a series of power reactors to the United Arab Emirates to a Korean consortium proposing a reactor design that Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon said was less safe - and thus less expensive - than Areva's EPR.

The conference was convened at OECD headquarters at the invitation of the French government, which officials said sought a "balanced" view of nuclear energy that allows new countries access to the technology while preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and denying nuclear to countries like Iran and North Korea that don't meet their international obligations in the area.

Sarkozy also spoke of a "massive" need worldwide for training scientists and engineers in nuclear technologies, and announced the creation in Saclay, south of Paris and headquarters of the French atomic energy commission, of an International Institute of Nuclear Energy which will host an International Nuclear School which he said would be "the biggest campus in Europe."

--Ann MacLachlan, ann_maclachlan@platts.com