PARIS — France’s environmental minister, Chantal Jouanno, called for an investigation into reports Tuesday that French nuclear waste has been sent to Siberia for storage in open-air parking lots.

Jouanno was responding to reports in the Liberation newspaper and French-German television Arte that France stores 13 percent of its radioactive waste in the Tomsk region city of Seversk.

French electricity company EDF said it sends uranium left over from nuclear plant production in France to Russia to be treated so that it can be used again. A company official denied that waste was left outdoors.

(AP)