At least the Americans got the Bikinians off the atoll before they dosed it.From 1960 to 1996, France carried out 210 nuclear tests, 17 in the Algerian Sahara and 193 in French Polynesia in the South Pacific, symbolised by the images of a mushroom cloud over the Mururoa atoll. For decades, France argued that the controlled explosions were clean. Jacques Chirac, the French president, controversially resumed nuclear atoll explosions in the South Pacific shortly after being elected in 1995.
Le Parisien said the documents "lifted the lid on one of the biggest secrets of the French army". It said papers showed that on 17 July 1974, a test exposed Tahiti to 500 times the maximum allowed level of plutonium fallout.
Bruno Barillot, who has investigated the impacts of the nuclear tests for the Polynesian government, complained of the high levels of thyroid cancers and leukaemia in Polynesia. He said the declassified documents revealed Tahiti had "literally been showered with plutonium for two days" during the Mururoa test; from the outset France knew the impact spread further than it publicly admitted. But of the 2,050 pages declassified, 114 remained blacked out.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Plutonium Shower
by
M. Bouffant
at
03:01
No vacation for us again this yr. The flight was booked, hotel rooms reserved, Tahiti here we come but now we think not. Good one, Froggies.This is worse than what the United Snakes did to the Bikini islanders.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Of course these tests are safe.
And why do you wonder that we're conducting them on the other side of the globe?
~
Crazy, who'da thunk the Frenchies were so warlike?
International Feel Editor:
Don't believe the hype: Les grenouilles pretty much think they're "exceptional" (like certain other nations we needn't name) & didn't want to be under the United Snakes' nuclear umbrella. Rugged individualists & all.
Or pin-dick compensators.
Post a Comment