With the atomic tests in the South Seas Atoll, France has “owed a debt to Polynesia”.

President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday morning (local time: Tuesday) at the end of his state visit to Papeete, the capital of the Pacific Islands that belong to France.

The victims of the nuclear tests, "who were anything but clean" should be better compensated in the future, said Macron.

Michaela Wiegel

Political correspondent based in Paris.

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An estimated 110,000 people are affected by the long-term effects of the nuclear tests.

France's President promised to give researchers free access to the archives.

“The state has kept this past secret for too long,” he said in his speech.

"Like you, I want truth and transparency," said Macron.

He will release all archives as long as they do not contain confidential information that could lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

High risk of thyroid cancer

However, Macron made no formal apology, as the victims' associations had hoped. The president also stressed that the state had not deliberately lied. "There were no lies, risks were taken that were not measured, not even by the military," he said. Macron admitted, however, that little consideration was given to the population in the island atoll, 15,000 kilometers from Paris. "We would not have made these experiments in Creuse or Brittany," he said. 

France had tested its first atomic bomb in the Algerian desert in February 1960. After the country gained independence, the experiments on the South Sea atolls Mururoa and Fangataufa, which belong to French Polynesia, were continued. 193 nuclear tests were carried out there between 1966 and 1996 - with devastating consequences for the environment and the health of the residents.

The incidence of thyroid cancer on the islands is three times higher.

The risk of blood cancer is also significantly higher.

A law that came into force in 2010 provides for the recognition and compensation of victims of these tests.

In French Polynesia, however, criticism is growing because so few applications are approved.

Macron was also confronted with protests by associations of nuclear test victims during his state visit.

He told them he understood their request.

The atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa served as a nuclear experimental base without asking the locals.

De Gaulle simply thanked Polynesians

The then French President Charles de Gaulle had merely thanked the population on a trip to the islands two months after the first nuclear test: “It is important to me to tell French Polynesia how much France appreciates the service, Polynesia to the Motherland proves by being home to the organization that is supposed to secure peace for all of France. Your future here can be great. "

However, serious environmental damage occurred in 46 above-ground and 147 underwater experiments in the lagoon reefs. In Paris, on the other hand, the myth of “clean nuclear tests” has been maintained over the decades. The public only began to take an interest in the topic through the Greenpeace campaign against the nuclear tests. The then President François Mitterrand had the French secret service blow up the Greenpeace ship "Rainbow Warrior" in the New Zealand port of Auckland in 1985.

But the state-ordered sabotage became public, in 1992 Mitterrand announced a nuclear test moratorium. His successor Jacques Chirac resumed atomic bomb tests, triggering a storm of protest and a boycott of French products in Germany. In 1996 he finished the nuclear tests. Shortly before the 50th anniversary of the first nuclear test in Polynesia, President François Hollande first recognized the health consequences in 2016.