Twenty-five years after the end of nuclear tests in the Tuamotu archipelago, the delegate for nuclear safety and radiation protection, François Bugaut, told AFP that
"there is no risk associated with radioactivity in Polynesia ”
. The
Toxic
survey-book
, published in March, argued the opposite, estimating in particular that the army and France had reduced the atmospheric fallout after the nuclear tests and the doses received by the Polynesians.
"What has been written is false"
, declared François Bugaut, during a trip to Papeete and on the atolls of Moruroa and Hao this week, indicating that another work, presenting scientific data
"accessible to all"
, would be published in the coming months.
To read also In Polynesia, the president assumes "the nuclear debt"
The information disclosed in
Toxique
, an investigation by online investigative media Disclose, sparked outrage in Polynesia.
A delegation led by Polynesian President Edouard Fritch had asked, last July, for explanations and commitments from the ministries of defense, health and overseas, as well as the president.
At the end of July in Papeete, Emmanuel Macron committed to opening nuclear archives, cleaning up sites and better compensation for victims.
The Information Commission for the former nuclear experimental sites in the Pacific presented, Tuesday in Papeete, an assessment of the monitoring of radioactivity in Polynesia. It is considered
"very low"
, based on samples taken in the air, water, soil and foodstuffs. The commission also judged
"extremely unlikely"
the risk of slipping of a magnifying glass (huge mass, editor's note) of limestone in Mururoa, which would cause a major wave and flooding of the living area of this atoll, where three technicians reside. civilians and 27 soldiers. The Telsite 2 geomechanical monitoring system would, according to the report, make it possible to announce this slide
"several weeks in advance"
.
Read also France undertakes to assume the consequences of nuclear tests in Polynesia
Of the first 31 archive boxes consulted since the commitments of the Head of State,
"only 2% of the documents are completely inaccessible, because they contain proliferating information, which would, for example, allow a rogue state to develop the bomb. »
, Explained Patrick Latron, chief of staff of the Minister in charge of Memory Geneviève Darrieussecq.
The other documents, so far classified as defense secrets, will be able to be consulted by historians.
But only 3% of the hundred linear meters of archive boxes on nuclear experiments in the Pacific have so far been opened.
