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Living with the legacy of France’s nuclear weapons testing

Nina Werkhäuser 26 Sept 25, https://www.dw.com/en/living-with-the-legacy-of-frances-nuclear-weapons-testing/a-74131800

France tested nuclear weapons for 30 years in the Pacific. The people of French Polynesia bore the brunt of the testing.

“For 30 years, we were France’s guinea pigs,” says Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross, a young member of parliament from French Polynesia.

This South Pacific archipelago, a French overseas territory that includes Tahiti and is famed for its white beaches, swaying palms, and turquoise waters, is often romanticized as a paradise.

But beneath the idyllic image lies a painful legacy: decades of nuclear testing and its enduring consequences.

Between 1966 and 1996, the French military detonated 193 nuclear bombs on the remote atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa. These tests were carried out in Ma’ohi Nui, as the territory is known to its indigenous inhabitants. The first explosion, codenamed Aldebaran, took place on July 2, 1966. It marked the beginning of a long chapter that would leave deep scars on the land and its people.

In 2025, Morgant-Cross journeyed over 15,000 kilometers (more than 9,320 miles) to Berlin to speak at an event in May, hosted by the international medical NGO International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, or IPPNW. There, she delivered a searing testimony about the long-term consequences of France’s nuclear testing program: disproportionately high cancer rates, children born with deformities and ongoing contamination of the region’s water and soil.

“So they really poisoned the ocean where we found all our food,” says Morgant-Cross who has also addressed the United Nations in New York. “We have been poisoned for the greatness of France, for France to be a state with a nuclear weapon.”

The ‘clean bomb’ myth

The French government at the time knowingly gave false assurances to the islanders about the dangers of the nuclear testing.

Then-President Charles de Gaulle described the French atomic bomb as “green and very clean,” suggesting it was safer or more environmentally friendly than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki .

Morgant-Cross calls it nothing more than “French propaganda.”

In reality, radioactive clouds drifted across vast parts of the South Pacific and even reached the main island of Tahiti, more than 1,000 kilometers from the test site. Often, residents of nearby islands weren’t informed or evacuated.

No Apology from France

France didn’t cease its nuclear testing program until 1996, following intense domestic and international outcry. Despite the halt, the French government has never formally apologized for the harm caused to its overseas territories.

During a 2021 visit to French Polynesia, President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged France’s role, stating, “The guilt lies in the fact that we conducted these tests.”

“We would not have carried out these experiments in Creuse or Brittany [in mainland France],” he said.

United Nations and various NGOs have observed September 26th as the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons since 2014. The days is a solemn reminder of the ongoing responsibility borne by nuclear-armed states.

Yet the suffering endured by victims of nuclear testing is in danger of being forgotten. In response, a rising generation from former test sites is refusing to accept the silence of those in power. They are mobilizing across borders, channeling their concern into coordinated action.

Parliamentarian Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross is among those speaking out. While visiting Berlin, she shared her family’s painful legacy: her grandmother was 30 when the nuclear tests began and later developed thyroid cancer as did her mother and aunt.

Morgant-Cross, born in 1988, revealed that both she and her sister also developed cancer, underscoring the generational toll of radioactive exposure.

Cancer can develop generations later

Experts warn that nuclear testing has led to clusters of cancer cases within affected families. Exposure to ionizing radiation can cause genetic mutations, which may be inherited by subsequent generations.

“The insidious nature of ionizing radiation lies in its ability to affect people across generations,” says nuclear weapons expert Jana Baldus of the European Leadership Network (ELN). “It significantly increases the risk of various cancers, particularly lymphoma and leukemia.”

Another consequence of nuclear testing is reproductive harm.

“Women exposed to radiation during the tests have given birth to children with congenital defects and have suffered miscarriages,” Baldus tells DW. “These effects can be passed down through generations, potentially leading to infertility in women.”

For Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross, the multiple cancer diagnoses in her family were a driving force behind her decision to enter politics.

She is now calling on France — the state responsible for the nuclear tests — to provide greater support for her fellow citizens.

“We don’t have the medical care that we should have, that we deserve, because we are 30 years late, in terms of medicines. We don’t have technology like medical scans.” she says. “It really pushed me to go into politics, and to demand that we deserve a better hospital, we deserve better treatment.”

Only a small fraction of those affected have the means to travel to Paris for medical treatment, leaving many without access to adequate care.

Victims face an uphill battle for compensation

In 2010, the French government enacted legislation to provide compensation to victims of nuclear testing. However, each case is assessed individually, and claimants must demonstrate a direct link between their illness and the nuclear tests. That burden of proof is not always easily achieved.

Expert Jana Baldus points out a major hurdle.

“Victims must prove they were physically present at the exact location when the tests occurred — a nearly impossible task decades later.” In addition, compensation is limited to a narrow list of officially recognized illnesses. According to the global coalition ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), only 417 residents of French Polynesia received compensation between 2010 and July 2024.

For Hinamoeura Morgant-Cross, the fight isn’t only about securing practical support, it’s also about education.

In her homeland, a persistent narrative still portrays the nuclear tests as a so-called clean endeavor that brought prosperity. 

“For decades, we had pictures of the nuclear mushroom in all the living rooms of the Tahitian people because we were proud the French decided to choose us,” she recalls. Her mission now is to dismantle what she calls that “colonial mindset” and shed light on the true consequences of the tests.

The future of nuclear testing: risk or rhetoric?

France wasn’t alone in conducting extensive nuclear tests. The Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and China also carried out large-scale detonations.

In total, more than 2,000 nuclear explosions have taken place. The resulting radioactive fallout not only contaminated the immediate test sites but also contributed to elevated radiation levels across the globe.

Nuclear testing was halted primarily through moratoriums and international negotiations surrounding the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

In recent years, North Korea has been the only country to conduct such tests. Yet amid rising geopolitical tensions, experts warn that a resurgence of nuclear testing remains a real possibility.

September 29, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, OCEANIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment