Nuclear company Socatri, a subsidiary company of Areva, has been ordered by a French Court of Appeals to pay damages of over half a million Euros for polluting groundwater after uranium was spilt from a tank at the Tricastin site in France.

The AFP has reported that Socatri will pay a €300,000 (£261,000) fine, €20,000 each to antinuclear pressure group Sortir du Nucléaire, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and €10,000 each to 12 local residents who had also brought proceedings against the company.

The company has five days from the date of the verdict in which it can lodge an appeal with France’s supreme court of appeals.