3 Jul 2008

French Polynesian veterans remember 1st French atomic weapons test

6:37 pm on 3 July 2008

The French Polynesian nuclear test veterans association, Moruroa o Tatou, has commemorated the 42nd anniversary of the first French nuclear weapons test.

The event was marked in Tahiti amid continued acrimony over France's insistence that the tests were clean.

The association's president, Roland Oldham, says it will no longer meet the French official in charge of nuclear safety.

Mr Oldham says his group has local support.

"We got together with all different organisations, with associations for the environment, for sick people and trade unions to commemorate, to remember what has happened, what France has done to us, what sort of heritage we have today."

Roland Oldham