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Sixty one years ago, France conducted its first atmospheric nuclear test, codename Gerboise Bleue. This was the first of four tests held in the Sahara desert at #Reggane, Algeria.
As revealed in declassified maps in 2013, radioactive fallout from the Gerboise Bleue test spread far across north Africa.
The French military buried contaminated waste in the desert, and left behind sacrifice zones that are contaminated to this day. https://eu.boell.org/sites/default/files/importedFiles/2020/07/13/Collin-Bouveret-2020-Radioactivity-Under-The-Sand.pdf?dimension1=division_asp
After four tests at Reggane, the French military shifted the nuclear test site to the mountain range at In Eker, to conduct 13 underground tests between 1961-66. These underground tests continued even after the 1962 Evian peace accords, that ended the colonial war in Algeria.
While the In Eker tests continued, France began building the Centre d'Expérimentations Nucléaires du Pacifique (CEP) at Moruroa, Hao and Fangataufa atolls. When the CEP test centre was ready, they transferred the nuclear weapons program to the South Pacific.
In 1966, as they abandoned the In Eker test site, the French military built a concrete and barbed wire fence around the mountain to keep people away from plutonium-contaminated zones.
Forty one years later, I took a photo at the same location – clearly, plutonium lasts longer than concrete. The local wadi is contaminated, and people can freely approach hazardous areas.
In the 30 years between 1966 until 1996, France conducted 193 atmospheric and underground nuclear tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls.
Today, people in Algeria and French Polynesia are still waiting for France to fully compensate the civilian and military survivors for the health and environmental impacts of the tests. https://insidestory.org.au/we-would-like-the-french-state-to-apologise/
