Starting 2 November 1999, COGEMA is launching a mass public communication campaign and creating an Internet site, equipped with cameras (webcams), to make everyone familiar with the COGEMA plant at La Hague.
This system is designed to serve a communication policy that is resolutely open and attentive to French public concerns. The COGEMA plant at La Hague is often perceived as a mystery, occult and dehumanized world. This communication campaign, entitled "We have nothing to hide", illustrates COGEMA'S determination to inform the citizens in the greatest possible transparence and its wish to bring the Group's industrial operations and the persons working there closer to the public.
The campaign includes TV commercials and press ads. The underlying principle is to work on issues that have made news. The televised system includes two films, shot at La Hague.
The first, lasting 90 seconds, consists of interviews and testimonies of employees who represent the professional and human diversity of the plant.
The second, in 45-second format, presents the questions to which public opinion wants answers.
These questions are also repeated in the press ads.
To ensure that everyone obtains all the answers to his questions, the TV spots and press ads refer to the website "http://www.cogemalahague.fr/" and to a tollfree number "0800-64-64-64". Cybernauts can witness live, by means of a dozen cameras (webcams) what actually happens in different places at COGEMA La Hague and in its environment: general view of the site, spent fuel unloading installations, storage ponds, Valognes rail terminal, etc.
To reach beyond irrational fears through transparence, to show that COGEMA's men and women are fully responsible and determined to contribute actively to the information of the public at large: this is the gist of this first step of the new dialog that COGEMA wants to establish with public opinion.