Fessenheim nearly got out of control in 2016 when water flooded electrical equipment racks. Control of of the reactor rods was interrupted, core temperature was rising uncontrollably. Letting the control rods fall into the core via gravity didn't work anymore either. They had to emergency flood the core with Boron, which luckily worked, the first time this has happened in a western european power reactor.

They assigned the incident level 1, the lowest one, in order to cover it up.

France has huge power demands in cold weather due to badly isolated houses heated with electricity. The power grid is already unstable, France cannot afford to loose much generator power, as they have nothing to replace it with - very few renewables.