Demands To Lift The Veil Of Secrecy Surrounding Nuclear Bomb Tests In Algeria
The nuclear waste left by France in Algeria no longer concerns the Algerians only, as kids, youth and old suffered from its dangerous impacts in the past and are still suffering to this day. Rather, concern has shifted to the French side, in light of Paris’s continued imposition of a policy of non-transparency in this file.
This concern was also raised by the French MP Charlotte Leduc, of the LFI lest party, in the form of a written question, to the Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, to ask her about the lack of transparency in nuclear waste of military origin, especially the contaminated waste buried in French nuclear tests’ sites in southern Algeria.
According to the French Radioactive Waste Management Agency, Paris has produced a total of 1.67 billion cubic meters of radioactive waste since launching its nuclear programs after World War II. According to the questioner, part of this waste comes directly from the French military atomic program, i.e. about 150,000 cubic meters, resulting from the development, manufacture, testing, deployment and dismantling of nuclear weapons, such as submarine reactors and nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and many facilities related to building this vast atomic arsenal.
It is known that the French colonial authorities embarked on conducting nuclear explosions in Algeria in 1957, and extended until after independence, and exactly to 1966, which are experiments of nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction, and ballistic missiles carried out by France in several locations in the Algerian Sahara, and their disastrous impacts are continuing on population and the environment till today.
The French MP Charlotte Leduc relied, in accusing her country’s authorities of lacking transparency in this sensitive file, on the report issued on March 3, 2022, bearing the number 5144, which was completed on behalf of the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Options, on the preparation of the fifth planning document for the sustainable management of radioactive materials and waste ( PNGMDR), which acknowledges the lack of transparency about military nuclear waste, according to the text of the written question.
This report recommends that “elements on military nuclear waste management should be included in the next document of the French plan for the management of radioactive materials and waste”. The questioner replied, in her justification, on a study entitled “Military Nuclear Waste: The Hidden Face of the French Atomic Bomb Tests” (published by ICAN France and the Armament Monitor, in December 2021) conducted by independent experts.
The MP raised questions about the categories of military nuclear waste and emphasized that not all waste was listed, especially those resulting from the bombings conducted by the French occupation army in Algeria between 1960 and 1966.
Based on all of these details, MP Charlotte Leduc asked the French Minister of the Armed Forces about the actions that the ministry intends to do to raise the level of transparency in this sensitive file, related to military nuclear waste, and whether the maps of quantities of polluted waste buried in nuclear test sites in Algeria will be announced.
MP Charlotte Leduc belongs to the left party La France Insoumise, which has come to bear the name the”New Popular Ecological and Social Unity”, led by the left-wing opposition and anti-far-right Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is known for his liberal and critical stances against colonialism.
Many secrets related to the nuclear bomb tests in Reggane and Wad Enamous (In Ekker), southern Algeria, are still hidden from public opinion in both France and Algeria, and the areas that witnessed these explosions are still contaminated with nuclear radiation and poisoned with harmful chemical gases, causing incurable diseases to the residents of the region, affecting even newborns, just as it affected French soldiers who worked in the region.
Despite the demands raised by Algeria to the French authorities to clean up those areas of nuclear and chemical waste, and to compensate the victims of that waste, Paris, although its enactment of what is known as the “Morin Law” in 2010, which came to compensate the victims of those bombings, it restricted benefiting from compensation with incapacitating conditions.
French law requires the applicant for compensation to meet very difficult criteria to have their victim status recognized. In particular, he/she must demonstrate his/her presence in a geographical area of nuclear tests, during a period in which they took place and suffer from one of the 23 diseases listed by decree.
Unfortunately, since 2010, only one Algerian national has been compensated out of the 723 people recognized as victims by the Committee for the Compensation of Victims of Nuclear Tests (CIVEN). This situation demonstrates a serious problem. Moreover, this law has still not been transcribed into Arabic (although it has been available since 2018 in the Polynesian language), restricting its access to a large population.
