France funded an information campaign against a survey of nuclear experiments in Polynesia
The French Atomic Energy Committee (CEA) has spent tens of thousands of euros in an attempt to refute research that has constantly underestimated the devastating impact of its nuclear experiments in French Polynesia in the 1960s and 1970s. This is what the Guardian tells after, together with Le Mond, he saw a report received from a French investigation reported as a result of a parliamentary investigation into the tests.
On the basis of the document, it can be assumed that the CEA has conducted a coordinated campaign to discredit the discoveries.
The operation cost over 90,000 euros and took the occasion of a 2021 book.
The book, Toxique, tells only the effects of six of the 193 nuclear experiences conducted by France from 1966 to 1996. The Moruroa and the Fangufa atoli, based on 2000 pages of declassified materials and dozens of interviews, concludes that they have polluted many more people than France has ever recognized. Recent documents show that a year after the publication of the book, CEA has published 5,000 copies of its own brochure – entitled « Nuclear Experiments in French Polynesia: Why, how and with what consequences? » – And she spread them through the islands.
France under pressure to take responsibility for the damage from his nuclear attempts in Polynesia
The committee also sent a team of four business class to French Polynesia, where they stayed at the Hilton Hotel to meet with local high -ranking persons and interview the media. The brochure of glossy paper claimed to provide « scientific answers » to the « claims » in Toxique, whose authors did not have « the same level of expertise ». The pollution has been limited, and France has always acted transparent and with respect for the health of the locals.
Consequences
The response from the publication of Toxique 4 years ago led to visits to French Polynesia by Minister and President Emmanuel Macron, who acknowledged France’s « debt » to the region.
| In one of the 1974 tests alone, research found that 110,000 people – the population of Tahiti and the nearby islands – could receive a sufficiently high dose of radiation to provide them with compensation if they later develop one of 23 different cancers. |
Toxique claims that CEA has long underestimated the levels of radiation, which significantly limited the number of persons eligible for compensation: by 2023, less than half of 2846 submitted compensation requests were considered eligible.
Forty -six of France’s nuclear attempts were in the atmosphere. This is exposed to the local population and the French soldiers located at that time in Polynesia, at high levels of radiation, before the testing program was moved underground in 1974.
France will offset the victims of their nuclear attempts
Thyroid, breast and lung cancer, related to radiation, as well as leukemia and lymphoma, are widespread on the islands. For its part, the French army said that by 2000 troops could have been exposed to sufficient radiation to cause cancer.
