This is a decisive week for French nuclear company Areva: the rescue procedure by the EDF group, under the "guidance" of the Paris government, could be completed before the end of the month. According to reports in the daily Les Echos, the deadline for establishing the details of any potential agreement has been set for 30 July. The French financial newspaper painted a decidedly bleak picture of the current situation, however: the mediation attempts made last Friday — despite the presence of Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron — would only have confirmed the gulf between the two groups' chairmen, Bernard Lévy and Philippe Varin. According to a well-informed source, the discussion was said to have been "extremely tense" and the atmosphere "horrible."

The "refounding of the nuclear sector" project presented by the Élysée on 3 June envisages the transfer to EDF of Areva NP, the French group's reactor division. Although both companies are partly owned by the French state, the problem lies in quantifying the value of this business unit: according to the press, negotiations are revolving around 2.7 billion euros, which would represent a compromise between Areva's demands (3–4 billion euros) and EDF's offer (2 billion euros).

But Varin himself is said to have written a letter to President François Hollande, requesting specific guarantees. Areva is indeed embroiled in a series of financially catastrophic affairs: for the construction site of the new Epr reactor at Flamanville, in Normandy, costs have nearly tripled compared with initial estimates. Meanwhile at Olkiluoto, in Finland, where since 2005 Areva has been building another Epr, the company has already forecast losses of 3.9 billion euros — more than the reactor's sale price of 3 billion euros. All of this contributed to a total loss of 4.8 billion euros for the 2014 financial year.

Furthermore, another aspect that has generated strong disagreement between the parties concerns the reprocessing of uranium used in power plants, which is carried out by Areva at the La Hague site. Les Echos reported on a letter from Varin addressed directly to Hollande, in which the manager is said to have warned: either EDF will agree to take on a share of the reprocessing costs, or the state will have to compensate with a larger recapitalisation than the one currently planned. And the cost of the operation could rise to as much as 4–5 billion euros.