23 Jun 2006

France says Pacific nuclear tests were safe

9:50 am on 23 June 2006

A senior French official says there has been no fallout damaging people's health from the 41 French atmospheric nuclear weapons tests.

The official in charge of nuclear safey, Marcel Jurien de la Graviere, says the state did not tell a lie when it said that the tests were safe.

Mr de la Graviere says with the level of fallout from the atomic blasts between 1966 and 1974 there was no need to provide shelters.

He says even by today's safety standards there would be no need to provide shelters.

Mr de la Graviere says he has passed on a request by French Polynesian groups for information to be released about who worked at the test sites.