Europäische Union

Campaigners protest against nuclear energy at COP31 in Antalya, Turkey. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
ANTALYA, Türkiye, Nov 11 2026 (IPS)

Gabriel Sheunopa Manyangadze holds a placard reading “No nuclear spin, let renewables win” as a campaigner leads protesters against nuclear energy in Africa at the United Nations climate summit in Antalya, Turkey.

The activists warned African leaders of the investments required to establish nuclear energy and the dangers its waste poses.

“We have realised that when people put nuclear forward as a solution, they are only looking at it from a short-term perspective. They do not look at the long-term effects that include pollution,” Manyangadze, a food and climate justice manager at the Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute based in South Africa, told IPS during a protest against nuclear energy as a climate solution at the ongoing Conference of the Parties, or COP31.

South Africa is the only country on the continent that has a commercial nuclear power plant.

Located in Melkbosstrand near Cape Town, the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station has an installed capacity of around 1,854 MW, providing roughly 5% of the country’s electricity. Its units will operate until the 2040s.

But there are concerns about the sustainability of this nuclear power plant.

False Climate Solution 

Manyangadze said the power generation company is struggling to dispose of nuclear waste.

“They are dumping the liquid waste and the solid waste that is being generated from the power plant in a place called Vaalputs, but the area is still radioactive, affecting the environment in the surrounding areas,” he said.

The Vaalputs National Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility is South Africa’s primary and only radioactive waste disposal site in the Northern Cape. The 10,000-hectare site handles near-surface disposal of solid and solidified low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste from Eskom’s Koeberg Nuclear Power Station. Nuclear waste remains radioactive for up to 300,000 years.

Though the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) licenses and regulates it, with continuous environmental and seismic monitoring showing no detectable radiological impact outside safe limits since operations began, farmers fear leaks into nearby water could affect agricultural productivity.

Manyangadze said that communities who live around this area have not prepared for a disaster. “We work with the people around the nuclear facility, and they are not clear on what to do in case of a disaster,” he says.

There are concerns about the capacity of African governments to handle and prevent a nuclear disaster.

There have been major nuclear disasters around the world after explosions released radioactive materials into the environment, affecting thousands of people and polluting the environment.

The Chernobyl Disaster in Ukraine on 26 April 1986 involved a flawed safety test combined with operator errors that caused an uncontrolled power surge, triggering a steam explosion that released massive amounts of radioactive isotopes across Europe, leading to the deaths of dozens of people and the permanent evacuation of over 160,000 people.

An earthquake and tsunami caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on 11 March 2011. The floods knocked out active cooling systems and backup diesel generators, resulting in explosions, the deaths of dozens of people and the displacement of 164,000 people.

Some parts of Africa are facing climate change disasters like floods, mudslides, landslides, and storms, which are becoming more frequent. Such weather poses a threat to power plants, as happened in Fukushima.

At the United Nations climate summit in the Mediterranean country, the COP31 presidency is pushing for a global target to increase electricity’s share of final energy consumption to 35%, up from the current 20%, by 2035.

Proponents of nuclear energy are pushing for investments and the expansion of nuclear reactors to generate electricity to meet this global electrification target.

Rachitaa Gupta from the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice said that nuclear energy is not the solution that is needed to fix the energy crisis in the Global South.

“Most of this nuclear energy is being pushed on indigenous lands. It is our communities that are subjected to uranium mining and its devastating consequences,” she said.

“Our lands are being destroyed for nuclear energy plants, but the power does not even go to the people. It powers data centres that are being promoted by big technology companies. This is not for the people but for corporations.

South Africa’s Eskom and the Department of Electricity and Energy plan to procure an additional 5,200 MW to 10,000 MW of nuclear capacity by 2039 under the Integrated Resource Plan 2025. They plan to start public consultations in late 2026.

Togo, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Morocco, Ghana and Egypt are some of the African countries that are also considering nuclear energy.

Russia’s Rosatom is constructing a four-unit El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant, 320 kilometres northwest of Cairo. The first nuclear power plant in the country and in the region, El Dabaa, will generate 4,800 MW of electricity.

Amos Wemanya, a senior climate advisor at Power Shift Africa, a research group in Kenya, said that nuclear power is not the best energy option for Africa right now because it takes a long time to set up, while the continent needs energy quickly.

“These people need access to electricity as soon as possible so that this power can help them power their development, power their prosperity. It takes a very long time to build a nuclear power plant,” he said.

“So we cannot be investing our limited resources at the moment in an energy system that is not going to help our people achieve our development as soon as possible.”

Nuclear energy requires high upfront investments running into billions of dollars, which are relatively lower once the plant is operational. A kilowatt is $5,300, or about $6bn more for a single large-scale reactor, estimates the World Nuclear Association. This is beyond the reach of most African countries that are struggling to service their debts and provide services like health, jobs and education.

Manyangadze said nuclear energy will ruin the South African economy.

Alternatives 

About 600 million people lack access to electricity in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for roughly 85% of the global population lacking electricity.

Gupta said they protested that if there is a push for energy, it needs to be clean, renewable energy, and not polluting energy, like nuclear energy.

“The model must not be the same as the fossil fuel energy systems, which are exploiting our communities,” she said.

Wemanya said that Africa needs an energy source that can transform the lives of communities.

“We need an energy system that is easy to deploy. There are so many alternative sources, renewable sources such as solar, that are easy to deploy and can benefit off-grid communities,” he said.

He said that wind and solar are cheaper alternatives compared to nuclear energy. “We cannot afford to invest in a nuclear energy system that is not fit for purpose for our continent,” he said.

According to the IEA, Africa contains 60% of the world’s best solar resources.

“And in most of the countries, particularly from where I come from in Southern Africa, we have the sun, and we can actually build our energy around renewables like the sun and the wind,” Manyangadze said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

Related Articles

• 1.5 Billion Women and Girls Live in Climate Hotspots, as UN Women Urges Stronger Action at COP31
• COP31: African Development Bank to Co-Lead Global Electrification Finance Initiative
• Kenya’s Civil Society Calls on COP31 Climate Negotiators To Draw From Grassroots

Transfermeldungen, -gerüchte und die wichtigsten News zum Eishockey: Hier gehts zum Ticker.

Der Aargauer Regierungsrat rügt Neuenhof wegen der abgelehnten Einbürgerung einer türkischen Frau. Die Gemeinde habe ihre Deutschbewertung ungenügend begründet und unzulässige Fragen gestellt.

By CIVICUS
Nov 11 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses France’s student protest movement with Aminata and Mariam Touré, two sisters involved in the protests. Aminata is a member of the Popular Youth Front (Front de la Jeunesse Populaire), a collective of young people from working-class neighbourhoods.

Aminata and Mariam Touré

Weeks of protests led by secondary school students have swept France, triggered by underfunded public services and limited opportunities. The wave forms part of a broader global series of recent protests, often led by members of Gen Z, sparked by everyday economic concerns and a rejection of the political establishment. On 17 October, some 550,000 people protested, according to official figures, but the day descended into the worst violence seen in years. Human rights groups have also documented extensive police brutality, including against children.

Why did you decide to take action?

In our secondary schools, we have holes in the walls, missing chairs, toilets without doors, overcrowded classrooms and absent teachers. Students completing secondary education also face constant pressure from Parcoursup, the national higher education admissions platform.

During the last heatwave, in Saint-Denis, in the northern suburbs of Paris, pupils fainted during their exams because there was no air conditioning and it was too hot in the exam halls. Pupils who were ill were forced to attend lessons, as these were the only days when teachers were present. With no school nurses on hand, they were unaware they were contagious and passed viruses on to each other.

These catastrophic situations only affect poor regions, rural areas and France’s overseas territories, which are even poorer. You never hear about this in central Paris, where the government concentrates its budget. A parliamentary report has shown that the state spends less per pupil in Seine-Saint-Denis than elsewhere. The result is that every child there loses, on average, the equivalent of a whole year’s schooling over the course of their education. For the start of the 2024 school year, the Seine-Saint-Denis inter-union group estimated there was a shortfall of 5,000 teachers, 2,200 support staff for pupils with disabilities and 175 senior education advisers. This is effectively a two-tier education system.

We’ve been raising these issues with our head teachers, but the government is doing nothing, apart from passing pointless laws. Blocking access to our schools was the only way to make ourselves heard. Thanks to that, we’re now the focus of national and global attention.

How did the movement spread?

The blockades began as early as 31 August in overseas territories. It’s just that, due to media censorship, we always find out too late. The movement then spread to Créteil, in the Paris suburbs, and then to other working-class areas of the Île-de-France region, notably Essonne, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne.

At first, everyone blockaded their own school. Then, solidarity among school pupils and support from trade unions brought us together on the streets for a common cause. School and student unions, and the General Confederation of Labour, one of France’s main trade union confederations, helped organise the protests and put forward our demands. Other movements joined us, including the gilets jaunes, the social protest movement that emerged in 2018. This solidarity proved decisive for each and every one of us.

Faced with the state’s contempt, the movement went national. Even privileged young people became aware of their educational privileges and the need to draw attention to this inhumane situation. The media have shown this. Attention paid to the blockades increased tenfold when students also blockaded elite institutions such as the University of Assas, the Catholic Institute of Paris and the Parisian secondary schools Louis-le-Grand and Montaigne.

What are your concerns about the national budget?

We are calling for more funding for education. The government is investing heavily in defence. The defence budget has risen from €32.2 billion (approx. US$34.8 billion) in 2017 to almost €54 billion (approx. US$58.3 billion) in 2026, and is set to reach €64 billion (approx. US$69.1 billion) in 2027. It will have almost doubled in a decade. But for education, the government is content with a mere increase of €200 million (approx. US$216 million) in 2026, while cutting thousands of jobs. This is not investment. It is a publicity stunt.

At the same time, the government is increasing pressure on people while easing the burden on big business. Life is becoming increasingly difficult. All the movements agree on one point: we must invest in education. However, the government continues to arm the police on a massive scale while depriving the education sector of the resources it needs to function.

How do you respond to the looting and violence of 17 October?

We are against all violence, whether it comes from the police or protesters. Looting is regrettable, but it is even more regrettable that greater importance is attached to insured shops than to people who lose a limb or the use of a sense. As a citizen, when I see a young person who has looted a shop receiving a harsher sentence than a man convicted of raping his daughter, my anger redoubles.

The state’s response is so violent that it unfortunately drives some people to loot even more, as this is the only time when anyone looks at you or listens to you. But these excesses backfire on us. The media use them to stifle our demands, which diverts attention from our struggles and weakens the movement.

The movement is torn between those who seem to want revolution and those who want peace, but one cannot exist without the other. Our history books teach us that all France’s great advances have stemmed from revolts, destruction and riots. We don’t find these tools in some shadowy online network or from belligerent leaders. We find them in our textbooks. Nevertheless, like the majority of protesters, we will continue to mobilise peacefully until the government listens to us.

How do you view the police response?

It’s a disgrace. We feel as though we’re at war. Police officers hit, shove, insult and threaten us. One slogan has appeared on several placards, referring to the police’s riot units: ‘We send out SOS signals, we get the CRS instead’. That’s where we’re at. Trust in the authorities was never as low as it has been since the protests began.

These aren’t isolated incidents. It’s a doctrine. Since the gilets jaunes protests, the French approach to policing has been documented as one of Europe’s most brutal. Activist groups have recorded around 20 protesters who have lost an eye and several who have lost a hand, and in Marseille, a local, Zineb Redouane, died after being hit by a teargas canister.

Violence isn’t limited to blows with batons. On 17 October, I was on my period, and I was doused with teargas for no reason, while my friends and I were helping unprotected people, many of them tourists, with saline solution and milk. The next day, I felt excruciating pain in my stomach. I then discovered that many women exposed to teargas report menstrual cycle disturbances.

We are living in an authoritarian state, where violence reigns and the social contract has been broken. The most severe violence is that perpetrated by the state, because it’s supposed to protect us and be legitimate. Yet it maims us without a shred of empathy.

How do you view the president’s reaction?

President Emmanuel Macron’s speech following the protests was shameful, despicable and deeply disrespectful. When he demands we choose sides, then singles out the left as responsible, he shows that he’s not listening to us. Asking us to choose sides ignores the fact that we don’t want to be on his side. Pointing the finger at so-called culprits shows that he fails to grasp the extent of the damage he has caused and continues to cause.

In 2017, Macron was elected by claiming to speak for the people. Two years later, he introduced a series of measures that harmed workers. We see this even in housing policy. Cuts are being made to housing for poor people while multinationals get richer. This is a political choice.

The government should learn to respect its people, listen to them and consult them. We expect it to take action to improve conditions in secondary schools and for our views to be taken into account, because it’s our future’ at stake.

What impact do you hope to have on the 2027 presidential election?

We hope the candidates will talk more about the problems facing young people and propose tangible solutions. We want to show that secondary school pupils, too, can make their voices heard and that they must not be ignored simply because they are young. I hope all French people will be taken into account in the debates, and that we will stop talking about Islam and migrants and focus more on precarious living conditions, dignity and security. I won’t be able to vote, as I’ll still be 17. It will also be a chance to see whether those who do vote realise that their voice matters, both for them and for us.

In 2024, Macron dissolved the National Assembly following the victory of the far-right National Rally in the European elections. Then, even though the left came out on top in the snap general election, he appointed a right-wing government.

In the wake of the dissolution, we formed the Popular Youth Front, a collective rooted in working-class neighbourhoods, to put voting back at the heart of people’s concerns, as abstention rates are extremely high in those neighbourhoods. Our open letter was signed by over 6,000 young people from working-class neighbourhoods and rural areas. But it’s clear we must fight both against the far right, which is not yet in power, and against the government.

What the world sees as a spontaneous revolt by Gen Z is anything but spontaneous. These are exactly the demands we were putting forward in working-class neighbourhoods two years ago. This uprising is the predictable result of a slow, bipartisan abandonment of working-class and racialised young people. This abandonment is not the work of the far right that everyone fears, but of the centre that claims to be blocking its advance. The proof lies in its response. A government that responds to children with teargas and calls this ‘urban violence’ has already adopted the authoritarian reflex it claims to be protecting our country against.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

One of those featured and photographed in this article is a minor. She appears with her parents’ consent, which was obtained in writing prior to the interview. Her name and all details that could identify her are included with her permission, as reconfirmed at every stage of the publication process.

GET IN TOUCH
Instagram
Mariam Touré/Instagram

SEE ALSO
Gen Z protests: new resistance rises CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
France’s student protests: a new generation demands respect CIVICUS Lens 23.Oct.2026
India’s young people find their voice CIVICUS Lens 07.Aug.2026

 

 

 

 

REPORT ‘Towards an EU strategy to protect and strengthen the international justice system and its institutions, mechanisms and partners’
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Mounir Satouri

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

REPORT on EU-Syria political relations
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Nathalie Loiseau

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Warum landet ein sanktioniertes russisches Militärflugzeug in Israel? Laut Medienberichten führte die Spur am Sonntag von Moskau nach Tel Aviv – womöglich mit GRU-Chef Igor Kostjukow an Bord und auf Wunsch der USA.

The European Parliament spokesperson will hold a last-minute briefing on the 11 – 12 November plenary session today at 13.30.

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

ÄNDERUNGSANTRÄGE 881 - 1147 - Entwurf eines Berichts Umsetzung der Gemeinsamen Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik – Jahresbericht 2026
Ausschuss für auswärtige Angelegenheiten
David McAllister

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

Forecasters warn that this year's El Niño could be one of the strongest on record, with heavy rain and flooding in Kenya.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has brought enlargement back to the top of the European Union’s (EU) political and strategic agendas. Yet current debate increasingly focuses on how to reconcile a credible accession perspective with expanding forms of gradual integration. This paper examines how the EU can sustain an effective enlargement policy in this changing geopolitical environment, using Albania and Montenegro, the Western Balkans’ two frontrunners, as test cases. It combines historical and comparative analyses of previous enlargement rounds with an assessment of current accession dynamics, original comparative data, governance indicators and 12 semi-structured interviews. It is argued in this paper that the key challenge is not to choose between geopolitical and merit-based enlargement but to ensure that gradual integration reinforces rather than substitutes for a credible path to full membership. Comparative analysis shows that enlargement has always combined geopolitical objectives with merit-based conditionality, while its transformative impact has depended primarily on the accession perspective’s credibility. The cases of Albania and Montenegro demonstrate that renewed political commitment since 2022 has restored reform momentum, albeit significant challenges remain, particularly in areas such as the rule of law, democratic governance and administrative capacity. Looking ahead, this paper finds that the principal obstacles to enlargement are increasingly political rather than technical. Furthermore, the next phase of EU enlargement will require balancing credible accession, differentiated integration and stronger support for long-term socio-economic convergence.
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Statement by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the alignment of certain third countries with Council Decision (CFSP) 2026/2286 of 12 October 2026 amending Decision (CFSP) 2018/1544 concerning restrictive measures against the proliferation and use of chemical weapons.

Statement by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the alignment of certain third countries with Council Decision (CFSP) 2026/2283 of 12 October 2026 amending Decision (CFSP) 2016/849 concerning restrictive measures against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Statement by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the alignment of certain third countries with Council Decision (CFSP) 2026/2397 of 26 October 2026 amending Decision 2010/573/CFSP concerning restrictive measures against the leadership of the Transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova.

Statement by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the alignment of certain third countries with Council Decision (CFSP) 2026/2378 of 26 October 2026 amending Decision (CFSP) 2016/1693 concerning restrictive measures against ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaeda and persons, groups, undertakings and entities associated with them.

Statement on today's meeting in Abu Dhabi between the EU, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Ukraine, United States and NATO

Main agenda items, approximate timing and press opportunities.

The Council extended the mandate of the EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine until 15 November 2028.

The Council approved conclusions reaffirming the EU’s commitment to principled humanitarian action, stronger protection of civilians and more effective action amid growing global humanitarian needs.

Remarks by Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis on the economic outlook in the euro area, defence financing and joint procurement, progress made on the digital euro and on the outlook for the banking sector, as well as the nomination process for three vacancies on the ECB Executive Board.