150,000 people would have been irradiated by the French nuclear tests carried out between 1960 and 1996. Nine soldiers will be compensated. For the others, the fight continues.
They will get redress. In a judgment delivered on Tuesday, the Bordeaux Court of Appeal recognized the right to compensation for nine veterans. These soldiers were irradiated during the French nuclear tests carried out in the Algerian Sahara and in Polynesia between 1960 and 1996. The Ministry of Defense will have to provide “proposals for compensation for the damage suffered”.
The “irradiated of the Republic”
This decision comes at the end of a long association struggle to have the status of “irradiated persons of the Republic” recognized for these victims of nuclear tests. But the battle is not won. The legal proceedings included seventeen files. Eight therefore did not win their case.
For them, the Association of Veterans of Nuclear Tests (AVEN) of Gironde “is considering continuing the fight by filing appeals with the Council of State, and if necessary up to the European Court of Human Rights. Male (CEDH), ”she told AFP.
List of pathologies identified among AVEN members
A compensation committee criticized
150,000 people, civilians and soldiers alike, were able to undergo radiation from 210 nuclear tests carried out by the French state. In 2010, the government passed a law to compensate victims (Morin law of January 5, 2010), which provides for the creation of the Compensation Committee for Victims of Nuclear Tests (Civen).
This committee is responsible for evaluating the “probability of causality” between exposure to nuclear fire and the pathologies developed by veterans as a result of these tests. A particularly difficult task, whereas at the time, most soldiers did not wear a dosimeter and did not benefit from any specific care. To date, Civen has received 911 claims. Only sixteen were successful.
Under fire from critics, the committee is accused of slowing down procedures. For one of the victims’ lawyers, Cécile Labrunie, quoted by the newspaper Le Monde “It is absurd to set up a compensation system that does not compensate anyone”.
“Shirtless, with the nuclear mushroom in the background”
At the start of the tests, the risks associated with nuclear exposure remained unknown to the general public, as evidenced by a veteran of the French Navy in a report from the Polynesia 1ère channel newspaper (see below). He takes his picture in front of the mushroom of nuclear fire, carefree.
Among the cases examined in Bordeaux are mechanics, topographers, radio telegraph operators and paramedics. Some have spent less than a year in the trial areas; others stayed there for several years. All of them have developed serious, even fatal pathologies.
Despite this mixed victory, AVEN was delighted with the decisions made on Tuesday. “This is a real step forward for us, and it means that justice is on the march, testifies to AFP its president Marie-Josée Floch. These decisions have every chance of setting a precedent, because more than half of the compensation claims initially rejected by CIVEN were successful in appeal ”.
>> Testimony of an irradiated person receiving compensation
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