Last June more than 90 percent of Italian voters said no to nuclear power in a referendum, while Germany and Switzerland voted to phase out atomic energy in the coming years.
In France, which faces a presidential election this spring, the Socialists and Greens pledged to close 24 reactors by 2025 as public opinion in what was once Europe's strongest supporter of nuclear plants begins to falter.
In Japan, efforts to collect signatures in support of a national vote on the future of nuclear power began just after the Fukushima disaster struck. But there are also separate attempts to introduce specific plebiscites in Tokyo and in the city of Osaka.