EDF says no leakage at French nuclear plants

PARIS (Reuters) - EDF (EDF.PA)denied Wednesday there had been radioactive leaks at any of its French nuclear plants, after market talk of a possible incident hit its share price.

France relies on nuclear power for much more of its energy than any other European country, giving it some of the area's lowest power rates.

But Japan's Fukushima crisis has raised anxieties about whether French authorities are doing enough to avoid a similar accident.

A spokeswoman for the state-controlled electricity company said a minor incident in April inside the No.3 reactor of its Paluel plant had caused an internal breach in waterproofing, but that no external leakage had occurred.

"There is no leak," the spokeswoman said, referring to the problem in April.

"There was a slight seepage in one of the fuel assemblies of the Paluel reactor 3. The situation was stabilized without any impact on the site's safety or the environment."

Adding to nuclear jitters in France, which relies on nuclear power for about 75 percent of its electricity needs, EDF said another reactor was being reconnected to the grid after a minor system fault Tuesday.

EDF shares dropped as much as 2.3 percent in strong volume -- representing a market capitalization wipeout of about 1 billion euros for the giant utility group -- as rumors of a leakage at a French nuclear plant spread across trading floors.

They later trimmed losses and were down 0.6 percent by 1450 GMT, lagging the 0.1 percent lower European sector.

Shares in French reactor builder Areva were down 1.8 percent.

EDF's stock has tumbled 16 percent, while Areva's shares have plunged 29 percent, since Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami sparked a nuclear crisis in the country.

Earlier Wednesday, French investigative website Mediapart reported there had been a series of malfunctions at the Paluel plant in the northern region of Normandy, which it said produces some 8 percent of the country's nuclear power capacity.

The website said the site had suffered from repeated leaks, discharges of radioactive gas, the triggering of alerts and incidents of worker contamination.

A union representing workers at the Paluel plant said in a statement last week there had been a leak of radioactive iodine at the plant for a number of months, starting last winter.

As for EDF's Graveline site, the utility was restarting the No. 3 reactor after a minor fault triggered an automatic outage a day earlier, a plant spokesman said.

(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide, Gus Trompiz and Blaise Robinson; Writing by Christian Plumb; Editing by Catherine Bremer and David Hulmes)