French legislation changes on victims

French-occupied Polynesia stands on the brink of a re-evaluation of the legislation concerning victims’ reparations. French legislative bodies are currently debating a new law proposal, put forward by Tāvini deputy Mereana Reid-Arbelot, to replace the 2010 “Morin law.” The latter has been widely criticized by victims’ associations for its restrictiveness. Between 2010 and 2020, more than 95% of victims’ demands for reparations were rejected by the CIVEN under the Morin law – a number that has fallen to 50% in recent years. Many Mā’ohi legislators and activists also condemn the fact that their country is responsible for the healthcare costs of treating radiation-induced cancers. The new legislation offers to lift the obligation to prove that victims were subjected to more than 1mSv in radioactive exposure, and France would commit to cover the medical costs to treat radiation-induced diseases, past and present. These are hard-won victories following decades of activism and advocacy by frontline communities.

However, there are still many issues with the proposed law. The new settlement system could lower the sum received by each claimant. The number of potentially radiation-induced diseases is still set at only 23 and does not include non-cancerous diseases. And only people who were born before 1975, the year after the last atmospheric test, would be eligible for compensation (the only exception being workers who were physically present in the nuclear testing atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa until 1998). This new proposal thus further restricts who could be eligible for compensation, as the Morin law allowed civilians born before 1998 to submit claims for reparations.

The 1975 cut off does not resist scientific nor ethical examination. Atomic bombs continued to be exploded underground until 1996, and the French military itself recognized that at least several of these tests leaked to the ocean, contaminating the food chain. It does not address the question of potential transgenerational effects of radiation exposure. And of course, radioactivity did not disappear after 1975 or 1998 - it continues to pollute the environment to this day. This chronological cut-off date comforts the French government’s expressed desire to relegate its nuclear testing program to a bygone chapter of its history, negating the transgenerational consequences of the tests and the 24,100 years of half-life of its plutonium waste. The law has been adopted unanimously by the French assembly in January and is debated at the French senate this month.

Anaïs Maurer is a board member of the Nuclear Truth Project