4 Jul 2011

Tahiti test veterans dismayed at compensation rejections

3:01 pm on 4 July 2011

French Polynesia's nuclear test veterans organisation Moruroa e tatou is disappointed that France has rejected all but one of the eight compensations filed under the provisions of a new law.

Two years ago, the defence minister, Herve Morin, pushed through the compensation law which for the first time acknowledged that the French weapons tests were not clean.

The Moruroa e tatou president, Roland Oldham, says the rejections by Paris have outraged many.

"To us it's a scandal, it is a real masquerade this Loi Morin; we were waiting for something like that but we didn't think it was going to be that bad. It's only going to put the reputation of France lower and lower."

Roland Oldham.

At the weekend, the 45th anniversary of the first of France's 193 nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific was commemorated in Papeete.

As part of the event Jacques Chirac Square was renamed 2nd of July 1966 Square.