will requests for anti-atomic shelters explode?

Will anti-atomic shelters spring up all over France and Europe, faced with the threat of nuclear conflict with Russia? Germany has announced that it will inventory its installations, while Sweden will proceed with their modernization. In Russia, serial production has even been launched.

Are we going to see a rush to fallout shelters? Germany announced on Monday that it was in the process of listing bunkers and shelters where the population could find refuge in the event of an attack, wishing to increase their number. There are currently 579, mostly dating from the Second World War and the Cold War era, which can house 480,000 people.

Same story in Sweden, where the authorities also want to modernize the 65,000 shelters built in the country and which protect against bombings. The government is even raising awareness among the population by sending brochures, reports Libération.

An even higher figure in Switzerland, which has 360,000 shelters, most of which were built during the Cold War, according to figures from the Federal Office for Population Protection (OFPP). They are simply obligatory, according to the federal law on population protection and civil protection.

Mass production in Russia

Finally, in Russia, the Research Institute of the Ministry of Emergency Situations announced Monday that it had started production of these shelters, called “KUB-M”, while Vladimir Putin recently modified the Russian doctrine on use of nuclear weapons.

Russia can in fact now resort to it in the event of a “massive” attack by a non-nuclear country but supported by a nuclear power, a clear reference to Ukraine and the United States, since Joe Biden authorized kyiv on November 17 to strike Russian territory with its long-range ATACMS missiles.

A decision that was not to the taste of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin increasingly threatening the West with potential strikes on its soil, declaring on November 21 that the conflict now had all the appearance of a “world” war.

No official data in France

A context of extreme tensions which pushes governments and individuals to look into the installation of anti-atomic shelters. But what about in France? More figures are often mentioned, of the order of several hundred, but no official data exists, as the Nuclear Safety Authority and the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) clarified to Actu.fr at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

France has never adopted a plan or real strategy on anti-atomic shelters because, unlike Switzerland, Germany or Sweden, it has nuclear weapons. His vision of protecting the population lies in nuclear deterrence, explained Jean-Marie Collin, expert and spokesperson for Ican France (International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons).

Are bunkers really useful?

Especially since the relevance and usefulness of bunkers is questioned by several experts, who denounce a market of fear. Several French and European companies offer various shelters, for several hundred thousand euros, for surfaces ranging between 9 and 15 m2 for the most part. This is the case of Amesis Bat, which specified to Challenges that its quotes had already increased by 40% between 2020 and 2021, during the health crisis.

“Finally, France would have to be directly targeted to make the anti-atomic shelter useful. In the event of an attack on another country in Europe, having a shelter would not be of much help in the face of the nuclear cloud “, explained Benoît Pelopidas, professor at Sciences Po to Franceinfo.

There is also the question of the long-term survival of the human species in the event of leaving the bunker after several weeks of confinement, having to face an ecosystem completely devastated by the nuclear bomb.