This paper attempts to estimate the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in the case of France by taking the role of nuclear energy in electricity production into account. We adopt the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration as the estimation method. Additionally, we examine the stability of the estimated models and investigate the Granger causality relationships between the variables in the system. The results from our estimation provide evidence supporting the EKC hypothesis, and the estimated models are shown to be stable over the sample period. The uni-direction running from other variables to CO2 emissions are confirmed from the casualty tests. Specifically, the uni-directional causality relationship running from nuclear energy to CO2 emissions statistically provides evidence on the important role of nuclear energy in reducing CO2 emissions. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.