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France has started two days of round table discussions on the consequences of 30 years of nuclear tests in French Polynesia.
Bringing together elected officials, ministers and NGOs from France and Polynesia, the talks – which are being held in Paris – were organized by the French government with the aim of “sharing information without taboos”.
They come four months after an independent investigation by journalists and researchers revealed that France had hidden the devastating effects of its nuclear tests in the 1960s and 1970s.
More than 2,000 pages of declassified Defense Ministry documents have been analyzed by journalists from the French news site Disclose, researchers from Princeton University and the British group Interprt.
By studying the “Mururoa files” and interviewing dozens of people in France and French Polynesia, the team reconstructed the effects of radiation from three major nuclear tests: Aldebaran in 1966, Enceladus in 1971 and Centaur in 1974.
“Denial of the State”
They concluded that France had underestimated, sometimes deliberately, the impact of the tests – and that the radiation levels were up to 10 times higher than those estimated by the French Atomic Energy Commission in 2006. .
“We cannot erase 60 years of state propaganda, denial, intimidation, contempt and arrogance with a wave of the hand,” said Polynesian President Edouard Fritch, who called for the holding of the talks.
Macron is expected to make an appearance at Thursday’s meeting, chaired by Secretary of State to Army Minister Geneviève Darrieussecq. Friday’s session will be moderated by Minister of Health Olivier Véran and Minister of Overseas Sébastien Lecornu.
The government has promised that all Polynesians will have “full transparency” access to archives and health data, but said it would also preserve “certain secrets” that could allow foreign powers to advance their ambitions of acquiring drugs. nuclear weapons.
The two main Polynesian NGOs representing the victims of the nuclear tests refused to join the talks.
Decades of testing
France carried out 193 nuclear tests between 1960 and 1996, mainly on the atolls of Fangataufa and Mururoa.
At least 41 tests were carried out in the atmosphere rather than below water level, with radioactive plutonium fallout covering the entire French Polynesian territory.
The standoff between Paris and the Polynesians over nuclear test compensation has been going on for decades. To date, 63 Polynesian civilians have been compensated.
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