Le Parisien uncovers French lie on 1960 nuke test
by alethoPress TV - February 16, 2014
A report says France covered up the extent of the nuclear fallout from its first atomic bomb test in North Africa.
The report published by the French daily Le Parisien
was based on a recently declassified military map regarding the fallout
from the detonation of the Gerbouise Bleue bomb in the Algerian desert
in 1960.
The
map revealed that radioactive particles reached the Italian island of
Sicily and the southern Spanish coast on the 13th day after the blast.
Lawyer
Fatima Benbraham, who represents dozens of cases in Algeria, said the
map shows that Algeria and practically the whole Saharan region was
contaminated following the atomic test.
The
documents were declassified last year following a ten-year legal
battle, in which the French government fought long and hard to prevent
the documents from becoming public, according to Bruno Barrillot, a
member of the pressure group Observatoire des Armaments.
The
pressure group along with others battled through court to have the
documents released in a bid to bring compensation to people whose health
has been allegedly affected by the radioactive fallout.
Human rights activists say civilians were not warned of the danger of the 17 blasts that took place in North Africa in 1960-66.
France admitted in 2009 that a small-populated area has been affected by the fallout.
Barrillot
said he hopes the newly declassified maps would force the
administration of French President Francois Hollande to admit that more
people could have been affected by the fallout.
“They
did not do these tests under the Eiffel Tower,” said Barrillot. “No,
they went far away from France and then lied about the true impact.”
France conducted a total of 210 tests in Algeria and then in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean from 1960 to 1996.
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