What France has accomplished proves that nuclear power can be made to work, which honestly was never in dispute (at least not by me). But all of the criticisms I leveled also apply to French nukes: they're expensive, they have a long construction lead-time, and there are environmental drawbacks.

They are still, granted, to be preferred over coal -- not in terms of cost or lead time (the opposite actually) but purely for environmental reasons. Coal is MUCH worse than nuclear in terms of environmental damage.

However, I would hope that it doesn't finally come down to a choice between those two. If it does, the choice is an easy one to make, but I believe there are better choices still.