France recently shut down its largest nuclear plant because of jellyfish! The incident took place on August 11, 2026 as the concerned authorities shut down Gravelines, the largest nuclear power station in Western Europe, after a swarm of jellyfish clogged the pumps which used to cool the units. Interestingly, the same thing happened exactly a year ago when the power station was overwhelmed by jellyfish, leaving operations at the facility disrupted for a couple of days.

EDF, the operator of the plant, has confirmed the news, stating that only one of the six reactors was running at full capacity. In a statement, the operator mentioned that three of the six 900-megawatt reactors were taken offline completely, while a fourth had its output halved and another was already offline for maintenance. “This situation has no impact on the safety of the facilities, the safety of our personnel or the environment. On-site teams are fully mobilised to ensure the safety of the facilities and to reconnect the reactors to the national power grid,” added EDF.

The EDF also deployed fishing vessels to carry out round-the-clock preventive fishing operations after the incident. Three boats were patrolling the coast, catching jellyfish in trawlers and releasing them offshore. The operator also cleaned up the pumping stations and the equipment to restart the operations. Meanwhile, the exact species of jellyfish involved in the incident was not known.

It may be noted that EDF had to shut down several reactors in June-July 2026 due to extreme heat and drought-like conditions. Prior to the latest closure, France recorded a shortfall of 15.6% in nuclear power production.

Swarms of jellyfish also forced nuclear plants to shut down in other parts of Europe, including a three-day closure in Sweden in 2013 and a 1999 incident in Japan, which caused a major drop in output. According to experts, overfishing, plastic pollution and warming seas because of climate change have created conditions, allowing jellyfish to thrive and reproduce.

Meanwhile,

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das