Nuclear tests had no health effects: Chirac
PAPEETE, Tahiti: French President Jacques Chirac said decades of controversial nuclear tests in the South Pacific did not give islanders cancer, as hundreds of former test site workers and relatives protested in the capital.
On the eve of his first trip to French Polynesia since ordering the last round of tests in 1995, Chirac told a Tahitian newspaper that the atomic tests, which sparked riots on the island and drew global outrage, had "no effect on health".
Hundreds of former site employees, who want compensation for staff they say were made ill by radiation and for families of those who died, and up to 1,000 supporters protested in the capital Papeete on Saturday under the banner "Truth and justice for the victims of Mururoa".
France carried out some 30 years of nuclear tests until 1996 on the uninhabited Mururoa atoll. Chirac ordered the last round of South Pacific tests in 1995 after his first presidential victory, prompting nearby Australia to suspend defence ties with Paris and spearhead an international campaign against France.
But Chirac said the 193 nuclear weapons tests had no health effects, reiterating that studies by experts at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had found they posed no threat.
"There are no health consequences," he told daily newspaper Les Nouvelles de Tahiti in an interview published recently, adding the IAEA experts had concluded detailed radiation surveys were not needed.
Chirac told the Polynesian parliament the day before that the tests had helped make France a world power and it would not forget the islanders' service to French national security.
"Without Polynesia, France would not be the great power it is today, capable of expressing in the concert of national an autonomous, independent and respected position," said Chirac.
After facing a storm of protest and riots in Papeete, Chirac ended the series of tests in 1996 ahead of schedule and France has since signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
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