Antinuclear

France’s nuclear tests: radioactive experiments on soldiers

French soldiers used as ‘nuclear guinea pigs’ The Age MICHEL MOUTOT February 17, 2010 – France used soldiers as guinea pigs in nuclear tests in the 1960s, deliberately exposing them to radiation from atomic blasts to test the effects, according to a report revealed on Tuesday.

The secret military report, obtained by AFP, said that between 1960 and 1966 France sent troops onto Algerian desert test sites “to study the physiological and psychological effects caused on humans by an atomic weapon.”
One operation in 1961 involved military personnel advancing on foot and in trucks to within a few hundred metres (yards) of the epicentre of a nuclear blast less than an hour after detonation, according to the report.
The conscripts were given 45 minutes to dig foxholes in the contaminated desert earth, protected only by the military-issue boots, capes, gloves and simple face masks……..

The tests aimed to help the military develop “physical preparation and morale training for the modern combatant” and teach soldiers how to protect themselves after a nuclear blast, it said.

France has allocated 10 million euros ($13.6 million) to compensate victims of nuclear tests in the Sahara and in Polynesia, but bitter political and medical fallout still lingers 50 years after the tests.

According to campaigners, children are still born with deformities in the irradiated Algerian desert, while in France elderly army veterans complain of multiple unexplained cancers.

AVEN, an association representing the troops exposed to the 210 tests carried out by France in Algeria and French Polynesia between 1960 and 1996, says it has gathered 4,500 testimonies from victims and their spouses.

French soldiers used as ‘nuclear guinea pigs’

February 17, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1 | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, radioactive