_Are Vah !

What to say about a nuclear power plant project in the post-Fukushima era? And furthermore in a seismic zone by the sea? This project is French: the nuclear giant Areva is about to build the largest station in the world in Jaitapur, a heavenly creek 300 kilometers / 185 miles south of Mumbai, in the state of Maharashtra.

France wants to sell six EPR reactors, the latest pride of Areva, to India to meet the growing needs of the country’s electricity. The future plant will be built on a zone with seismic risk where 10,000 people depend on fishing and mango production, which is exported everywhere in the world. Locally, the surprise quickly turns to amazement. An Indian will tell you “Are Vah!” (Damn!).

India, which opened to the civil nuclear market in 2008, wants to attract foreign companies to its soil while minimizing its liability in case of major accidents. On the other side, France is looking for its exportation model and confirms its nuclear obsession.

All this in spite of the general freeze of nuclear projects in the world, following the Japanese crisis. France is betting on a “nuclear renaissance” while India bets that its energy development will happen thanks to the nuclear. What will be the costs of these big bets? Combining pictures, videos, sounds, and data journalism, the web documentary Are Vah! offers an investigation into the causes of this industrial ambition and the risks of this project through the responses of Indian specialists.