(487.4839) WISE Amsterdam - France conducted a total of 198 nuclear tests; 4 aboveground and 13 underground tests during 1960-1966 in Algeria (then a French colony) and 181 at Moruroa and Fangataufa in the Pacific (of which 41 aboveground tests). The French authorities deliberately did not warn or evacuate inhabitants in Algeria or from Pacific islands, although they knew they were heavily contaminated by nuclear fallout. In Algeria soldiers were sent up to 100 meters from Point Zero, just hours after the explosion.
Guinea Pigs in Algerian Sahara
The first French nuclear test, called 'Blue Jerboise' (a North African mouse) took place on
February 13, 1960. The radioactive cloud from this test spread to above the former Fort-Lamy, what
is now N'Djamena, the capital of Chad. The army minister declared nothing special had happened. But
a secret report from July 15, 1960, wrote that the air above Fort-Lamy was 100,000 times more
radioactive than normal. Le Nouvelle Observateur claims this is corresponding with the radioactive
clouds in the first minutes after the Tsjernobyl explosion. Nobody will probably ever know what the
consequences would be for the population. Rains and dry fallout deposited strong radioactive
concentrations in hot spots in parts of central Africa, which still exist today.
The last nuclear test in Algeria, on April 25, 1961, with a plutonium bomb, called 'Green
Jerboise', was the most mysterious. Little is known about it. Putschists had taken over power at
that time. De Gaulle was afraid they would try to lay hands on the atomic bomb, and he ordered that
the bomb be exploded as soon as possible. Nothing is known about the goal of the test; the army
still keeps it secret. The staff made it a simulation of a nuclear war. Some 195 soldiers,
transported from a French military site in Germany, were positioned in holes at three kilometers
from point zero. They were told never to reveal what they saw and did. In front of them they
attached goats to poles. One of the goats became blind after the test. Two minutes after the blast
they had to leave their shelter and to look at the mushroom cloud. Thirty-five minutes after the
test, infantry and armored troops were sent towards the center of the explosion. The purpose: to
test the protective materials and to know the reactions of the soldiers who were used as guinea
pigs. They advanced slowly: two kilometers in 40 minutes, because they had to simulate a war:
throwing grenades, running, firing, jumping. At 1,100 meters they perceived the devastation caused
by the bomb and made tests on the level of radioactivity. At 650 meters a level of five roentgen an
hour was measured. The infantry was then returned by car to the base. The armored troops advanced
till 100 meters from point zero, where the radioactivity was very high. The drivers stood in their
AMX cars. They stayed for an hour in the zone, then returned and were allowed to take a shower. The
ultimate report from the mission stressed the fear that seized the soldiers. Quote: "The
psychological behavior of the soldier seems to be dominated by a psychose of fear, susceptible to
become an obsession."
The health consequences have remained a mystery. The French Army did not undertake long-term
health studies, officially at least, from the thousands of soldiers who had participated in the
nuclear tests. They were given no information whatsoever. The United States had also been sending
soldiers into contaminated zones after nuclear tests. But Washington decided in 1978 to give those
soldiers the details about their irradiation. In 1988 Congress passed a law to indemnify all
nuclear veterans who got cancer between the ages of 30 to 40.
| Atmospheric | Underground | Total | |
| U.S.A. | 215 | 812 | 1.027 |
| Soviet Union | 204 | 511 | 715 |
| United Kingdom | 21 | 24 | 45 |
| France | 45 | 153 | 198 |
| China | 23 | 23 | 46 |
| India | 1 | 1 | |
| South-Africa | 1 | 1 | |
| Total | 509 | 1.524 | 2.033 |
On July 2, 1966, soldiers saw children playing on the beach of Mangareva island in French Polynesia. They kept silent, but they knew the wind was carrying strong radioactivity, that the soil was contaminated, and that the children were endangered. To warn the parents would mean warning the world France was going to poison an inhabited island. So they kept their mouth shut. De Gaulle wanted his force de frappe (a nuclear deterrent force), restore French grandeur, so he could leave the NATO (France left NATO in the 1970s) and nothing was allowed to hinder his purpose. The army and the Commission on Atomic Energy (CEA) swore nuclear tests were completely innocuous for the population. They knew it was false. In their secret meetings they repeated that the nuclear tests from 1966 and 1967 were particularly 'dirty': especially those on a platform. Those bombs explode just above the water and the clouds endangered the neigboring islands.
Four islands with 1,200 inhabitants were threatened with radioactive fallout: Reao, Tureia, Pukarua and especially Mangareva with 600 persons. What to do? It became an obsession for the atomic patrons. To evacuate them would be the best, they were advised by the Radiological Safety Service (SMSR). But then the media would know: for political and psychological motives this was out of the question. The SMSR experts knew the Polynesians were extremely vulnerable to radiation effects. As they wrote: "This population has special characteristics: isolated, an important fraction is less than 15 years old, pregnant women, elderly people." "Higher genetic risks than an average European population." There was a kind of brainstorm: how to protect them? Maybe hide them. Where? In "churches, which give good protection against the most severe irradiation during the first hours?" But they would not even do this.
Accidents are inevitable: in effect the French knew nothing about the Polynesian weather, nor about nuclear tests from barges. They had no experience. Their American allies refused to inform them about how to limit the dirty consequences. So France sent nuclear spies over the ocean to the US, but they failed to get the information they needed. So they chose the trial-and-error method. The first French Pacific nuclear test-explosion took place on Mururoa on July 2, 1966. Sixteen hours later, alarmist messages reached Vice-Admiral Lorain on the cruiser De Grasse: The cloud was more radioactive than had been thought, and stayed lower. The wind blew it towards Mangareva. A day later, a safety official from Mangareva sent a telegram: "...Radioactivity not neglectable. Soil contaminated. Instructions asked for decontamination and food." Lorain only sent the scientific vessel la Coquille, and forbade the dissemination of information to the population, or to start safety directives. The doctor on board la Coquille, Millon, wrote a secret report, of which only two copies exist. The vessel arrived at Mangareva three days after the test. The first positive results (of measurement of radioactivity) are in fish and plankton. The fourth day the vessel reaches Rikitea, the largest village. Local products were already severely contaminated. Unwashed salads: 18,000 picocuries per gram, same level as at Chernobyl on the first day. After heavy rain, soil samples showed levels of 1,400 picocuries per gram, a still heavy contamination. Nothing was forbidden (except to disseminate information), nobody was warned. Millon wrote: "The population [was] completely unaware, carefree and show[ed] no curiosity."
To prevent people from posing questions, Millon proposed to remove European teachers from the
area. He also suggested that shelters be built because more powerful tests would take place in
September and October. Concrete shelters were built in August, but this worried the people. They
were afraid they would be locked up and killed after the nuclear test. So the shelters were not
used.
Heavy rains after the September tests strongly contaminated Tureia and Mangareva islands. The
blast had a force of 250 kiloton, 20 times that of Hiroshima and about 15 times the yield of the
July bomb. Radioactivity of rainwater at Mangareva reached 100,000 Becquerels a liter. Reaction of
the military: no measure taken. On the contrary, the fall of the radioactive rain "necessitates
a strengthening of the secrecy", an officer explained. To prevent panic, the contamination of
the soil was not systematically measured.
From 1968 the tests took place from a balloon. This was supposed to be less dirty, because the
explosion took place on a higher altitude, so the fallout was less concentrated and more dispersed
over a larger area. From 1974 till the last test in 1996, tests were carried out underground.
Have there been more accidents or contaminations? It's impossible to know: only the army
archives from 1966 and 1967 were opened. One only knows that in 1968, some days before the first
H-bomb test, the inhabitants of Tureia were invited to leave their island to pass some days on
Papete to join the traditional July festivals.
Health consequences after thirty years of tests are not known and not studied. The French Ministry
of Health began to register cases of cancer on the four isles only from 1984 onward. If anybody
from those isles did die from leukemia or other forms of cancer before that date, nobody knew.
Concerning cancer after 1984, no official study was been carried out before the final test in 1996.
In 1997 the army offered to pay for a study regarding the connection between cancer and nuclear
tests in French Polynesia. The scientists had to deliver their report to the desk of the boss from
the Department of Nuclear Experiments. This general has not yet made public the much-awaited
document. This suggests there was something to hide. In the United States, Congress made an excuse
to the population around the nuclear test area in the Nevada desert. Not so in France yet.
Source: Le Nouvel Observateur (Fra), 5-11 February 1998
Contact: Hiti Tau, PO Box 4611, Papetee, Tahiti Tel: +689-521 371, Fax: +689-572880
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