French nuclear reactors' lifespan should be increased beyond the current limit of 40 years to help address the country's future energy needs, according to a report commissioned by the government and released Monday, February 13.

Experts of the "Energies 2050" commission found that the French government must "avoid any nuclear plant administrative shut down" unless for safety and security reasons and insisted that to extend the reactors lifespan as much as the French nuclear safety regulator Autorite de Surete Nucleaire, or ASN, would consider possible, seemed the logical course of action, according to the report.

France is the world's second largest nuclear operator after the U.S. and before Japan, with 58 reactors currently running and a 59th, a third-generation Evolutionnary Pressurized Reactor, or EPR, being built by state-controlled power behemoth Electricite de France SA (EDF.FR), which owns all of the reactors.

The Energies 2050 commission, led by Claude Mandil, former head of the International Energy Agency, and energy expert Professor Jacques Percebois, also called for the construction of "a small number" of safety-enhanced EPRs ahead of the gradual shut down of the country's oldest reactors.

The report was commissioned last autumn by France's Energy Minister Eric Besson, after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan triggered much public debate about the share of nuclear in France's energy mix, as it accounts for around 75% of the country's electricity. Nuclear energy has gone from not being an issue with the French public to becoming a hot topic in France's current campaign ahead of the presidential election in April-May and the Parliamentary elections later this year, Dow Jones Newswires reported.