Name: Representatives from about 40 countries attend International Atomic Energy Summit | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-03-10T16:34:44.000Z
Duration: 8 min 25 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Transition words & phrases

Now, let's go to what's happening in France, because representatives from about 40 countries and international organizations are in Paris for a meeting to discuss nuclear power.

And this comes, of course, as the US Israeli conflict against Iran highlights the dangers of reliance on fossil fuels.

The meeting's to be opened by President Emmanuel Macron.

Let's talk to our correspondent, Hugh Scofield.

Hugh, this meeting coming at a really pertinent time when the vulnerability of fossil fuels is really in focus.

I mean, this is part of a program of summits which kicked off a couple of years ago in Brussels and which is part of an ongoing effort, international effort, to resuscitate and give life back into the civilian nuclear power industry.

France very much involved in all of this, of course, because France does have a very substantial civilian nuclear energy capacity of its own and wants to be very much part of this relaunch, as it hopes will take place for all sorts of reasons.

You know, climate change is one thing, demand from AI is another thing.

But of course, right now, all minds focus on the perennial issue of the vulnerability of fossil fuel supplies.

So the need to diversify away from that is what gives this summit, which as I say, was pre programmed a long time ago, added relevance.

We're looking at the live pictures, waiting for President Macron to arrive at this summit.

Hugh, just taking a step back, and the reaction to the war in France more widely.

We saw President Macron very visibly in the Mediterranean yesterday.

One is, one is, as you say, what we saw yesterday, the military posture.

France very much, I think, well, I have to say, slightly relishing the distinction that's been drawn between it and Great Britain, France and its capacity to push its fleet out into the zone quite quickly.

Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier is there.

It's promising to have eight frigates there very quickly and helicopter carriers to secure.

Well, to play a part in securing the East Mediterranean, defending its allies.

And it has military allies in the zone, in Qatar and the uae, and

ultimately in helping assure free passage of ships through the Gulf of Hormuz, the Strait of Hormuz.

But of course, there's the other aspect to it all, which is the domestic aspect, energy supplies.

And there is growing pressure here as elsewhere, to do something about the soaring cost of energy.

And in France, there is this constant idea that the state will step in.

Well, you know, the Same demands are being made of the government now to step in and do something about this inflation in petrol prices and ultimately possibly across the board in prices.

But the Macron's government is in no position to do anything about it because it's living on a, on a financial budgetary knife edge.

So it's going to resist as long as it can this pressure from down below to step into, to remove taxes or put a cap on prices at the petrol pump.

But all of that sort of feeds into this bigger idea, longer term idea of diversifying, getting more of France's energy and Europe's energy from civil nuclear programs, which will be the subject of conversation and discussion and decisions at this summit.

Hugh, while you've been speaking, Emmanuel Macron has arrived at the summit.

He is greeting fellow delegate, delegates and VIPs there.

He's just meeting Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA, the UN's nuclear body.

Who else do we know will be present for this summit?

As you say, it is pre planned, although it's very pertinent to what is going on in the Middle East.

Well, I don't have the list in front of me.

I know There are about 40 countries and international agencies there.

The list has gone down slightly because of what's happened in the Middle east and the fact that some people, I presume, from the Middle east aren't going to be attending.

The Americans will be here, the Chinese will be here, both of which have said that they are intending to launch big programs in civil power stations, that the hope is, I mean Macron's hope is that he can persuade the world's financial markets, the big financial players, the pension funds and so on, to start investing in civilian nuclear power.

And he also hopes that France will benefit from that.

France does have, as I said, this, this pre existing capacity and knowledge and expertise in civil nuclear energy and wants to be able to exploit that by selling its services around the world.

Ursula von der Leyen is also here and there's an announcement expected from her about the European Union's program of small micro nuclear power stations, which again should be coming online or they're hoping to come online in the coming decades.

So all of this is in the mix that the hope is, and

this has been spelled out at dubai at the COP28, if you remember a couple of years ago, that by the middle of the century civil nuclear power generation will have been tripled and from Being at the preserve of maybe, what, 30 countries around the world, it'll be maybe 70 or 80 countries that are producing civil nuclear energy on some scale or another.

And that's what the issue is at this summit, against the background, as we said, and

as we saw a couple of years ago, after the Russian Ukraine war was launched, at a time of instability caused by the vulnerability and the perennial sort of instability of the Middle east and the oil that flows out of the Straits of Hormuz.

Hugh, what is the French public making of the war in the Middle east and France's response?

Well, I mean, they're fixated on the potential for disruption to their lives.

You know, people are worried about the potential for inflation.

Everyone remembers what happened in 2022, and

the big surge of inflation back then, which took a couple of years before it tailed off, and

whose effects have not left us because many prices are still much higher now than they were then.

They're worried about the petrol pump rises, which, as we were saying, have shot up.

It's now €2 a litre for diesel in my local petrol station, for example.

People are looking at the region, of course, and, you know, are concerned on a kind of humanitarian way about what is happening out there.

But I think they take a certain pride and, you know, share in a sense of national pride in the fact that Macron has announced and the presence of this fleet there so quickly in the region.

I mean, I don't think anyone believes that this French presence is going to change matters considerably, but

I think the satisfaction that France has been able to show its presence there.

Hugh Schofield, Paris correspondent there.

And we've been looking at those pictures from Paris.

That summit aiming to boost the use of civilian nuclear power, opening in Paris in the next hours as that conflict in the Middle east, highlighting the dangers of reliance on fossil fuels.