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FRANCE FINALLY AGREES TO PAY DAMAGES TO
NUCLEAR
TEST VETS -- For years France refused to pay the
test vets,
fighting them in the courts and building a wall
of silence
around the dangers of the nuclear explosions.
For more about nuclear test veterans, use the VA
Watchdog search engine... click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearc
h.php?q=nuclear+atomic&op=or
Story here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
world/2008/nov/27/france-nuclear-tests-illness
Story below:
Comments at bottom of page.
-------------------------
France finally agrees to pay damages to nuclear
test victims
• Radiation illnesses must be recognised -
minister
• Veterans' relief at end to 40-year wall of silence
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
The Guardian
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.
Hervé Morin said France would draw up a list of health problems that could
be linked to radiation exposure over the course of 210 tests from 1960 to
1996. He admitted that France lagged behind countries such as the US in
failing to acknowledge long-term health effects, saying: "Today, we must
recognise these victims."
"We were guinea pigs who have had no proper medical support," said Michel
Verger, president of the veterans' pressure group, Aven.
 The
group, which has about 3,000 members, surveyed more than 1,000 veterans
and found 35% had one or two cancers and one in five were infertile.
Verger said veterans suffered a range of illnesses, including cancers of
the blood and cardiovascular problems, and their children and
grandchildren were also suffering health complications.
Drafted for the war in Algeria when he was 20, Verger took part in the
first French nuclear test in the Sahara desert in 1960 - the controlled
explosion of an atomic bomb more powerful than that dropped on Hiroshima.
"I was wearing shorts. We were made to lie face down on the ground, eyes
closed and arms folded and not watch the flash, but immediately afterwards
we had to get up with an apparatus round our necks and measure and
photograph the impact. I had no sunglasses. There was one pair between
40."
He added: "For a long time there was a wall of silence from the state
because France was a nuclear power in military and energy terms. Leaders
on the right and left perhaps thought that if they recognised that people
present at the tests were ill it could prejudice the country's civil
nuclear energy."
He warned that France should not limit the range of illnesses eligible for
compensation.
Other veterans have described how they were ordered to manoeuvre tanks
close to explosions or to drive to "point zero" after a bomb went off.
During the tests at Mururoa in French Polynesia in the late 1960s, one
veteran described how he was stationed in shorts and T-shirts on a boat
only about 15 miles from the explosion before sailing immediately to the
area of the vast mushroom cloud to examine the damage.
Jacques Chirac caused controversy when he resumed tests around atolls in
French Polynesia in the south Pacific shortly after being elected
president in 1995. In 2006 a French medical research body found nuclear
testing had caused an increase in cancer on the nearest inhabited islands.
In recent years several court cases have been brought by nuclear test
veterans suffering health problems who complained the state had denied
them disability pensions.
The government said yesterday it would no longer appeal when courts ruled
against the state in these cases.
But the defence ministry warned that the compensation law would be strict
and could rule out illnesses whose causes were linked to other risks such
as smoking and alcohol.
-------------------------
posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
-------------------------
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