Electricite de France (EDF.FR) has been forced to suspend maintenance operations at its Tricastin nuclear plant due to technical problems.

The French utility giant stopped refueling operations at reactor two of the plant after a fuel assembly got stuck in the pressure vessel, EDF said in a statement on Friday.

"The incident took place at 2215 GMT," Reuters quoted a source at the plant as saying.

"We are very worried about this especially as this already happened just a year ago," the source added.

EDF faced a similar incident in the same reactor in September 2008. The problem was resolved in two months.

France had recently announced that of 58 nuclear reactors of the country, 15 of them are out of service.

HRF/MMA