France To Compensate Nuclear Test Victims

By Angela Marie Watkins
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

PAPEETE, French Polynesia -The French National Assembly approved a landmark bill Thursday to compensate victims of nuclear tests carried out in French Polynesia and Algeria over more than three decades.

The bill calls for the establishment of a review commission and fund dedicated to the 150,000 civilian and military personnel who worked on the 210 nuclear-test explosions France carried out in the Sahara desert and the Pacific from 1960 to 1996.

Resources will also be available to people who claim they are suffering from radiation-caused illnesses because, at the time, they lived in the Algerian Sahara and near the two Polynesian atolls where France staged its underground, submarine and atmospheric blasts.

The legislation — whose 300-to-23 passage spanned party lines — must now be presented to the Senate, which is expected to approve it. Defense Minister Herve Morin said in May when he presented the bill that he expected it to take effect by the end of the year.

The bill comes after decades of official denials by France of its responsibility, for fear that the admission would have weakened its nuclear program during the Cold War.

For more information, please see:

New Zealand International News - France to compensate nuclear test veterans - 1 July 2009

The Wall Street Journal - French Assembly OK's Compensation For Nuclear Test Victims - 30 June 2009

TIME - France Votes to Pay Nuclear-Testing Victims - 30 June 2009