The SPIRAL 2 facility, an ambitious extension of the GANIL accelerator complex, has entered recently in the construction phase. In the frame of this project, a new superconducting linear accelerator delivering high intensity, up to 40 MeV, light (proton, deuteron, 3-4He) beams as well as a large variety of heavy-ion beams with mass over charge ratio equal to 3 and energy up to 14.5 MeV/nucl. will be constructed. Using a dedicated converter and the 5 mA deuteron beam, a neutron-induced fission rate is expected to approach 1014 fissions/s for high-density UCx target. The versatility of the SPIRAL 2 driver accelerator will also allow using fusion-evaporation, deep-inelastic or transfer reactions in order to produce very high intensity Rare Isotope Beams and exotic targets. The energies of accelerated RIB will reach up to 7-8 MeV/u for fission fragments and 20 MeV/u for neutron-deficient nuclei. The physics case of SPIRAL 2 based on the use of high intensity Radioactive Ion Beams and stable light- and heavy-ion beams as well as on possibilities to perform several experiments simultaneously will be discussed and illustrated with recent results obtained at GANIL/SPIRAL. In particular, it will be shown that a use of light RI beams at the lowenergy ISOL facility and their acceleration to several MeV/nucl. in conjunction with innovative detector systems like MAYA/ACTAR, MUST2, GASPARD or PARIS will open new perspectives in physics of exotic nuclei and nuclear astrophysics.