FRANCE STAGED 184 nuclear tests between 1960 and 1989. Before moving to the Pacific France used Algeria for its nuclear explosions. Four atmospheric and 13 underground explosions were pertormed.
In 1963, when the French announced the establishment of the Pacific Experimental Centre, the Maohi people were unaware of the impending devastation that was to be intiicted upon them.
France promised that the bombs wou be detonatco cary wneh tnt winds were blowing away from inhabited islands. The pledge was swiftly forgotten —in one incident the French even redrew the map of the Pacific in order to cover up their mistakes.
After 1966 international pressure eventually brought an end to atmospheric testing after 44 blasts. The decision of the New Zealand government to send a trigate to Mururoa, with support from the Australian government. was crucial in ending the tests.
French tests were hencetorin conducted underground at Mururoa and. Fangatauta atolls from 1974. Nevertheless, the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tonga. Fijl. Tuvalu and other nations of the area have all registered heavy radioactive tallout and are taced with an increase in cancers.
The last test took place in October 1992. The government announced in April 1992 that it was joining the unilateral Soviet moratorium begun in the mid 1980s.
By 1989 118 of the 123 underground tests had been conducted at Mururoa.
Despite 74 atmospheric tests and 131 underground tests and 131 underground tests France insists that Mururoa is less radioactive than Paris. But no medical reports have been resased uince testing began in 1956 But stories abound of terrible cancers. increasing miscarriages and children born with deformations. The United Nations estimates that 150,000 people have died, or will die, as a direct result of nuclear testing in the Pacific.