The plant contributed around 16,000,000 euro in tax to the various local authorities, including providing the commune of Fessenheim with 70% of its revenue.

[13] Due to its location, the Fessenheim plant is subject to particular risks from seismic activity and flooding, and there is an ongoing debate about the adequacy of its design in these respects.

[24] The most recent earthquake in this zone, with a magnitude of 3.9, took place on Saturday, 10 September 2022, 1.2km from Flaxlanden (epicenter 47.693°N 7.359°E with a 8.9 km depth).

[26] A report commissioned by the Swiss canton of Basel-Stadt, published in 2007, concluded that the previous seismic evaluations undertaken by both EDF and, to a lesser extent, by the Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire (Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute, IRSN) had underestimated the risks involved.

[26] EDF also failed to take into account the possibility of a moderate local earthquake, which may have the potential to do greater damage than one which is larger but more distant, and the report was also critical of some aspects of the RFS 2001-01 assessment requirements.

[31] The station is built on top of a large aquifer (French Fossé rhénan, German Oberrhein-Aquifer), contamination of which would be very harmful.

[32] In August 2018, the plant was shut down during a heat wave to ensure that cooling water being released into the nearby river did not overheat it.

[35] The Swiss cantons of Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft and Jura have also said that they are going to ask the French government to suspend the operation of Fessenheim while undertaking a safety review based on the lessons learned from Japan.

The Tri-national Nuclear Protection Action Group ATPN (Action Tri nationale de Protection Nucléaire), with members from France, Germany and Switzerland also campaigned for the plant to be closed and in 2008 unsuccessfully applied to the Strasbourg Administrative Tribunal (Tribunal Administratif de Strasbourg) to order its closure.

[47][48] A local association called Stop Fessenheim was formed in October 2005 and registered in the Canton of Munster, after having operated informally since 2004.

[51][52][53] On the evening of June 2, 1980, unidentified people drove up to the gate of the power plant and fired guns at the guards.

[58] On 9 April 2017, the plant was ordered to close after the Flamanville 3 unit comes online, expected to begin operation in late 2018, later reported to 2019, keeping the French nuclear generation capacity below the legal limit of 63.2 GWe.