The world is still dealing with the aftermath of the French nuclear tests in Mururoa.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/paci...at-mururoa
"In 1962, the agency responsible for nuclear testing, Direction des Centres d'Experimentation Nucleaires (DIRCEN), oversaw the construction of observation posts, support bases, and other infrastructure for the programme, ahead of the first detonation in 1966 - a plutonium fission bomb code named Aldebaran, which was dropped from a helium balloon.
From that day, France would conduct regular tests on the atoll, where some of the explosions were 200 times the strength of the bombs dropped by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
But Mr Sage said the programme and its intentions was shrouded in secrecy, and little information was provided about the possible effects of radiation to the thousands of people who worked there, often with little more protection than shorts and t-shirts, on boats as little as 15 kilometres away from the test site. The main island, Tahiti, more than 1,000km away, is also thought to have experienced radiological impacts.
After only a few years, the tests grew more controversial. The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union had abandoned nuclear testing in 1963, but the French pushed on until the mid-1970s, when it moved to regular underground testing on the fragile atolls.
This was to the ire of environmental groups, and the atolls became the scene of regular protest flotillas. In 1973, the New Zealand government deployed two naval frigates to the site in protest.
For years, the French Defence Ministry insisted that the tests caused no environmental damage and that the health of workers was not put at risk. But Richard Tuheiava, a member of the French Polynesian Assembly, said the effects were clear.
"The fact is since the nuclear testing, most of the diseases are cancer and leukaemia. Most of the diseases are a result of the nuclear testing," he said. Scientific studies have backed this claim, suggesting heightened rates of cancer in those exposed to radiation.
The environmental impact, too, appears to have been worse than previously conceded by France. The soil around the atoll remains highly radioactive, and there are fears that the atolls have been weakened by the blasts and could collapse, triggering a tidal wave.
Despite the mounting evidence, the French government denied all suggestion that the nuclear tests were harmful to health until 2009, when it introduced a programme to give compensation to victims of radiation exposure. Of more than 1,000 claims, only 19 people have ever received compensation."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/m...arch-finds
"Groundbreaking new analysis could allow more than 100,000 people to claim compensation
Jon Henley
@jonhenley
Tue 9 Mar 2021 06.00 GMT
France has consistently underestimated the devastating impact of its nuclear tests in French Polynesia in the 1960s and 70s, according to groundbreaking new research that could allow more than 100,000 people to claim compensation.
“The state has tried hard to bury the toxic heritage of these tests,” said Geoffrey Livolsi, Disclose’s editor-in-chief. “This is the first truly independent scientific attempt to measure the scale of the damage and to acknowledge the thousands of victims of France’s nuclear experiment in the Pacific.”
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