madmark.myfastforum.org

Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

France finally agrees to pay damages to nuclear test victims

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2...v/27/france-nuclear-tests-illness

Excerpt:

They often wore only army-regulation shorts and T-shirts to protect them from atomic explosions, and were stationed dangerously close to mushroom clouds or hosed-down contaminated equipment wearing just swimming trunks. The soldiers and civilians who worked on France's notorious nuclear tests in the Sahara desert and south Pacific have long fought for compensation for the cancer and long-term health effects they blame on the state's failure to protect them.

But for years France resisted, fighting veterans in the courts and building a wall of silence around the dangers of the controlled explosions.

Yesterday the French defence minister finally broke the taboo, saying a law would be introduced in January to compensate those suffering illnesses among the 150,000 army and civilians who worked on the tests in Algeria and French-owned Polynesian atolls.