French radio has broadcast a long interview with what it says is a former French intelligence officer, who details what he calls the lies and deception surrounding the nuclear weapons testing programme.
The programme on France Inter, called Rendez-vous with X, tells of the search for potential test sites in the 1950s as Algeria appeared to be edging towards independence.
As the survey found La Reunion to be too crowded and New Caledonia too close to Australia and New Zealand, Moruroa was picked and later excised from French Polynesia.
The agent claims the risk from the blasts were known but both the population of the atolls in the region and the soldiers deployed to the test sites were kept in the dark or lied to.
In one instance he says, the entire population of Tureia, was taken off-island purportedly for a holiday to lessen the impact of the radiation.
