France to compensate for victims of nuclear testing.      (The Auckland Herald - 26th March 2009)

 The French Government will compensate victims of past nuclear tests and has earmarked an initial $10 million ($24.2 million) to do so, Defence Minister Herve Morin said yesterday.

The French state had long refused to officially recognise a link between its testing of nuclear bombs, which ended in 1996, and health complaints reported by both military and civilian staff involved.

"{French}  Governments believed for a long time that opening the door to compensation would pose a threat to the very significant efforts made by France to have a credible nuclear deterrent." Morin told Le Figaro newspaper, "But it was time for France to be true to its conscience."

France tested nuclear weapons in Algeria between 1960 and 1966, then in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean between 1966 and 1996. It conducted 210 tests.

Health and environmental campaigners denounced the nuclear tests for decades.

Hostility to the test reached its climax in the wake of the 1985 sinking by the French secret agents of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland.

A spokeswoman for New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign  Affairs and Trade said all indications were that the proposed French law was intended only for French military personnel and support people involved in the tests.

The chairmanb of the New Zealand Nuclear Test Veterans Association, Roy Sefdton, said New Zealand servicemen were hoping key New Zealand scietific research would help them gain multi-million-dollars compensation from the British Government.

"We wouldn't be chasing the French for anything."

Morin said in November that he planned to present a bill in 2009 setting out the terms of compensation schemes but he had previously given few details.

"About 150,000 civil and miltary workers are theoretically affected," Morin was quoted as saying by Le Figaro.

He said an Independent commission of doctors led by a magistrate would examine claims and if it recognised health damage linked to nuclear testing, the sate would fully compensate the individuals.

Morin said the Government had released its archives on the conditions under which the tests were carried out and their impact on the environment, and these documents were being examined by eminent doctors.