The Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choices (French: Office parlementaire d'évaluation des choix scientifiques et technologiques or OPECST) is responsible for informing the French Parliament of the consequences of scientific and technological choices in order to inform its decisions.
[10] In recent years, the Office has also been dealing with topical issues through a public hearing open to the press, which allows all the stakeholders concerned to be brought together quickly.
In March 2011, OPECST, then chaired by deputy Claude Birraux, was jointly seized by the Office of the National Assembly and by the committee of economy, sustainable development and spatial planning of the Senate, following the events of Fukushima, of a study on "nuclear security, the place of the nuclear industry and its future".
[15] The proposed long-term strategy would allow an optimal adjustment of each sector, and a gradual reduction, in parallel with the maturation of storage technologies which will make it possible to manage the intermittence of renewable energies without increasing CO2 emissions, the share of nuclear power in French electricity production.
[20] The independence of the OPECST on nuclear-related issues has long been questioned by environmentalists, including Michèle Rivasi, socialist related MP for Drôme from 1998 to 2002 and founder of CRIIRAD, who claimed to have had a "lot of difficulties to be admitted to sit on the Office" and declared in particular: "One cannot imagine to what extent the nuclear lobby permeates the work of the Office.