EDF gets into hot water with Greenpeace

FRENCH ENERGY company and Olympic sponsor EDF has been rapped across the knuckles by a Paris court for spying on environmental campaign group Greenpeace. The firm was handed a €1.5m fine and one of its senior executives was given a suspended prison sentence. The verdict is a severe embarrassment for EDF whose nuclear power-generating activities have long put it at loggerheads with environmental groups. The court heard that EDF had hired a detective agency run by a former member of France’s secret services to spy on Greenpeace’s plans to disrupt its operations. The company claimed in its defence that it had no idea the lengths to which the agency would go – including computer hacking and document theft – to gain intelligence. EDF is the world’s biggest nuclear energy producer and provides much of the power consumed in its native France. The country relies on nuclear power for more than three-quarters of its electricity in stark contrast to neighbours Germany who recently announced it was phasing out nuclear production.