Victims of nuclear tests in French Polynesia: a “debt” still unrepaid
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(FILES) A resident of Rikitea in Mangareva, the main island of the Gambier, 424 km from Moruroa and more than 1,600 km from Tahiti, holds on April 26, 2021 a photograph of a nuclear bomb that exploded in Moruroa. On June 13, 1995, French President announced the resumption of nuclear testing in French Polynesia. Thirty years on, these new shootings on the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls continue to haunt the overseas community. (Photo by Suliane FAVENNEC/AFP) SULIANE FAVENNEC / AFP
On Wednesday, June 18, the commission of inquiry into France's nuclear testing policy in this overseas territory delivered its findings. The MPs called, in particular, for broadening the criteria for access to compensation for the population, still affected by these events.
"I want to tell you here that the Nation owes a debt to French Polynesia." At the end of July 2021, the President of the Republic, traveling to this territory of fewer than 300,000 inhabitants located in the southern Pacific Ocean, uttered these few words. It must be said that since the end of nuclear testing on the archipelago in 1996, embarrassment has been palpable among French political leaders: no apologies have yet been issued.
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