France’s oldest nuclear power plant will shut down on Tuesday after four decades in operation, to the delight of environmental activists who have long warned of contamination risks, but stoking worry for the local economy. Despite a pledge by then-president Francois Hollande just months after the Fukushima disaster to close Fessenheim — on the Rhine river near France’s eastern border with Germany and Switzerland — it was not until 2018 that his successor Emmanuel Macron gave the final green light. Run by state-owned energy company EDF, one of Fessenheim’s two reactors was disconnected in February.
