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In memoriam

Mayor Pizot, a friend and a partner

4 Sep 2023
For the ITER community in France, Roger Pizot, who passed away on Sunday 23 July, was more than the long-standing mayor (1995-2020) of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, the small village in Provence where ITER is located administratively. He was a friend and a partner.
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On 9 April 2008, the Headquarters Agreement between the ITER Organization and the French Government officially entered into force. Accompanied by senior advisor Pascale Amenc-Antoni, ITER Director-General Kaname Ikeda (2006-2010) met with Mayor Pizot to share the good news.
In 2001, as the ITER Final Design Report was being finalized and France was already intent on hosting the project, Mayor Pizot played a key role in marshalling the support, both political and financial, of local governments in Provence. As the long-time neighbour of CEA-Cadarache, one of France's largest nuclear research centres, he knew from experience the benefits that a major scientific institution could bring to its environment. On his initiative, the local governments of the Sud-PACA region would pledge close to half a billion euros to ITER—a sum equivalent in value, at the time, to the contribution of an ITER Member.

Like many in his time and place, Mayor Pizot had left school early but retained, throughout his life, a vast curiosity for the world around him that led him to understand the importance of science exploration in general and of fusion research in particular.

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In 2012 Mayor Pizot, here with ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima (2010-2015), initiated a tradition—the gift of a large Christmas tree ever year to symbolize the family-like relationship between ITER and the local community.
In 1959, the creation of a large CEA research centre in Cadarache, an uninhabited section of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance (pop. 900), had brought pride, jobs and prosperity to the poor and sleepy community. Half a century later, ITER placed the village under an international spotlight and promised renewed opportunities. In Mayor Pizot's words, Saint-Paul had become the improbable "world capital of the atom." In 2008, he confided to the ITER Newsline that he intended to "serve ITER as ITER is serving Saint-Paul."

And serve he did: an industrial park was created at the village entrance to accommodate ITER contractors, along with a small commercial centre in the heart of the village with shops and restaurants to cater to their employees.

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In 2009 Mayor Pizot was appointed Head of the Commission locale d'information, an independent body that acts as an interface between a nuclear installation and the public. He is seen here during a meeting with ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot (2015-2022).
Mayor Pizot's interaction with ITER took on an extra dimension in 2009 when he was appointed president of the newly created Commission locale d'information, an independent body that acts as an interface between a nuclear installation and the public in France.

When ITER moved to its permanent headquarters in 2012, he initiated a tradition that his successor at the town hall in Saint-Paul has perpetuated: the gift of a large Christmas tree ever year symbolizing the strong, family-like relationship between ITER and the local community.

The passing of Mayor Pizot at age 76 fills ITER with sadness. He will be remembered as a generous, efficient and no-nonsense associate to the project.

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