News - Middle East: French authorities say half of nuclear power plants are now offline for maintenance or defects, at a time of soaring demand for electricity amid the energy crisis in Europe.

Energy supplier Electricité de France (EDF) said some 28 of the country's 56 reactors were shut down due to routine maintenance or defects on Friday.

The latest shutdown forced EDF to buy electricity from the European grid "to compensate the lack of production of our nuclear plants."

The power firm which supplies all of France's atomic energy, said it was "impossible to qualify the source of energy production."

A quarter of all electricity in the EU comes from nuclear power produced in a dozen countries from an aging fleet that was mostly built in the 1980s. France, with 56 reactors, produces more than half the total.