France spent E90,000 countering research into impact of Pacific nuclear tests
Source: The Guardian
France spent €90,000 countering research into impact of Pacific nuclear tests
Documents suggest campaign to discredit revelation that tests contaminated many more people than acknowledged
Jon Henley Europe correspondent
Tue 27 May 2025 06.00 BST
France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) has spent tens of thousands of euros in an effort to counter research revealing that Paris has consistently underestimated the devastating impact of its nuclear tests in French Polynesia in the 1960s and 1970s.
Days before a parliamentary inquiry presents its report on the tests, documents obtained by the investigative outlet Disclose, and seen by Le Monde and the Guardian, suggest the CEA ran a concerted campaign to discredit the revelations.
A 2021 book, Toxique, which focused on just six of the 193 nuclear tests that France carried out from 1966 to 1996 at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, drawing on 2,000 pages of declassified material and dozens of interviews, concluded that they contaminated many more people than France has ever acknowledged.
The latest documents show that a year after the book’s publication, the CEA published 5,000 copies of its own booklet – titled “Nuclear tests in French Polynesia: why, how and with what consequences?” – and distributed them across the islands.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/27/france-spent-90000-countering-research-into-impact-of-pacific-nuclear-tests