France: compensation for nuclear testing debate in the Assembly

PARIS - The National Assembly debated for the first time Thursday in a bill for compensation to veterans of nuclear testing by France, who irradiated, have since developed cancer, a long awaited for years by their associations.

•     “Thirteen years after the end of testing in the Pacific, the bill that I present today should enable our country to calmly close a chapter of its history,” said Defence Minister Hervé Morin.
  
      “France has been great in this political and strategic challenge, allowing us to be in the very restricted circle of nuclear powers, it must be great in her desire to repair her mistakes,” he added.
  
      Some 150,000 civilians and military personnel participated in 210 trials conducted between 1960 and 1996 by France in the Algerian Sahara and in French Polynesia, two sites whose populations are also entitled to compensation.
  
      Mr. Morin, who had already announced in the March release of a first package of 10 million Euros for 2009 to compensate the victims, felt in recent months to “hundreds” the number of those who may be affected by the law.
  
      According to an official report of 2006, he said, four of the thirteen trials made “in gallery” in the Sahara posed problems of confinement and ten of 46 tests conducted in air Polynesia have “resulted in significant radioactive fallout”.
  
      The bill must be voted on June 30
  
      Related to the origin “to repair the health consequences of French nuclear testing”, the text is now also a more explicit “on the recognition and compensation of victims of French nuclear testing.”
  
      It is “the recognition of a false state”, 50 years after the first nuclear tests, has added the Communist MP Maxime Gremetz.
  
  Ennaharonline/ M. O.