New documents obtained by investigative outlet Disclose suggest that France spent €90,000 to discredit research into the impacts of its nuclear testing in the Pacific.
In response, Shiva Gounden, Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, says: “This act by France is not just a denial of truth — it is an insult to generations who continue to live with the radioactive legacy of these experiments. From the scarred atolls of the Marshall Islands to the irradiated lands of Maohi Nui (French Polynesia), our people carry the enduring fallout of nuclear colonialism – cancers, displacement, environmental devastation, deaths, and loss of generations. Instead of reckoning with its past, France chooses to fund distraction over accountability, image over integrity. This is not the act of a nation seeking justice — it is the act of a nation running from it. The Pacific does not forget, and our people will not be silenced. No amount of money can erase the truth written into our Pacific families’ bodies, our lands, and our histories.”
Pauline Boyer, energy campaigner and nuclear expert at Greenpeace France, says, “This is a shamelessly ramped-up disinformation campaign by the CEA [France’s Atomic Energy Commission]. Nuclear proponents continue to defend the law of silence at all costs when it comes to the victims of civilian and military nuclear industries. It’s high time the CEA, as well as the French government, acknowledged the facts with transparency and honesty: they deliberately chose to expose populations and their land to radioactive fallout and contamination from French nuclear bomb explosions.
“Underestimating the number of victims and the extent of the devastating impact on the health of civilian and military populations, in order to reduce the number of compensation claims and minimise this dark chapter in history, is utterly indecent. All the more that France’s choice of the Pacific islands for these nuclear explosions clearly follows a colonialist logic”.
Last month, a new study by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) and commissioned by Greenpeace Germany, revealed that US nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands from 1946-1958 had impacted all atolls, but only three of the 24 atolls, all northern and inhabited at the time of radioactive fallout, received medical cancer screening.
In July, Greenpeace and the Rainbow Warrior will mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original Rainbow Warrior by the French secret service, who were attempting to halt Greenpeace’s campaign against nuclear testing in French Polynesia (Maohi Nui) at the time. The Rainbow Warrior will be in Auckland on 10 July to mark the occasion.
Get on board – Auckland Open Days
The Rainbow Warrior will be in Auckland from the 9th July and we will be open to the public for free tours on the weekends of 12th – 13th and 19th – 20th July.
We’d love to have you on board!
