Bomb

The French are, by no stretch of the imagination, the only people to face embarassments from a nuclear testing past. Independent studies on recently declassified papers, show the impacts of the Aldebaran (1966); Encelade (1971) and Centaure (1974) tests were far greater than admitted at the time. In total, France carried out 193 nuclear tests, between 1966 and 1996, at the Moruoa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia. Local populations (especially in Papeete, Capital of French Polynesia), site workers and French soldiers were all repeatedly exposed to high levels of radiation. There often seems to have been little warning to populations of the arrival of clouds of radiation. Such material could, of course, move in unpredictable ways, depending on the height of the cloud and wind directions. Exposing humans to radiation is a major cause of cancers. No compensation board was established until 2010. What appear to be largely bureaucratic devices, have resulted in over 80% of claims being currently rejected. The study suggests, however, that tens of thousands of human victims, in Tahiti and other island groups, actually have good cases for compensation. Nuclear radiation also has powewrful impacts on other living organisms in the vicinity. This is not mentioned but environmental damage should also be a consideration.