ASNR, France's nuclear safety and radiation-protection regulator, temporarily relaxed thermal-discharge limits on reactors 4 and 5 at Bugey on 10 July, capping the heating of the Rhone between the upstream and downstream measuring points at 1C under reinforced monitoring 1. The economy ministry ratified the decision in the Journal officiel on 11 July 2. The order runs to 20 July inclusive, today, with no extension confirmed 3.
That waiver is what the French price is standing on. France cleared EUR 98.95/MWh on Monday 20 July, a EUR 4.21 discount to Germany 4, settling a spread that had flipped direction three times around 16 July . Both zones are cross-verified against two independent price sources; the 17 to 19 July series is not, so 20 July reads as one confirmed print rather than a trend.
The order's own text moves the story off EDF's balance sheet and onto system margin. It records that RTE, the French transmission system operator, required minimum output from Bugey 4 and 5 as a "necessite publique", a public necessity, for grid security 5. EDF had already shut units at Chooz, Golfech and Bugey on 12 July under the 28C river-cooling limit , then slipped their restarts into a 19 to 25 July window 6. RTE's case for the waiver was that the system could not absorb losing two more reactors on top of those outages.
EDF's own Bugey production page has not been updated since 3 July and still describes the previous outage cycle, so the operator has confirmed nothing about Bugey 3's slipped restart through an entire active curtailment window 7. A desk holding FR-DE into this week is therefore short two disclosures at once: whether ASNR renews the derogation, and whether the reactor it never covered has physically come back.
