In June, French President Jacques Chirac revealed that nuclear tests would be conducted in the Pacific at the Mururoa coral atoll. These tests, Chirac, stated, would consist of eight nuclear explosions in a tunnel 1, 800 to 3, 000 feet below Mururoa beginning in September up until May 96. Chirac declares that these tests are necessary for computer simulation in the future. France has been bombarded with criticism, not only from environmental activists, but also from political standpoints. Japan and Australia officially protested French experiments and have convinced other Asian and Pacific nations to agree. New Zealand and Chile have recalled their ambassadors from France and the Japanese are presently protesting outside of their French embassy.
56% of the citizens in France polled oppose the tests and 60% want Chirac to reconsider his position. Stung by the criticism, France may cancel one out of the eight scheduled nuclear tests. Even the renowned Jacques Cousteau has publicly asked Chirac to rescind the tests. Cousteau has even resigned from the government agency Council for the Rights of Future Generations, in protest. France, along with the United States and Great Britain, has not signed a treaty completely prohibiting the detonation of any nuclear device in the South Pacific.
Many of the protesting nations located in the Pacific have signed and support this treaty. Also, France has not followed the initiative of most of the nations of the developed world in signing a 1971 treaty prohibiting ‘the emplacement of nuclear weapons… on the ocean floor and in the subsoil thereof.’ Besides public and international disapproval, France may suffer other side effects because of the nuclear testing. The explosive power of the blast is just less than 20 kilotons (20, 000 tons of TNT).
The Essay on Nuclear Test Ban
The nuclear test ban issue has been the first item on the agenda of the Conference on Disarmament since 1978 with good reason. In 1963, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the USSR entered into the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), which prohibited testing in the atmosphere and underwater. In 1974, the United States and the USSR entered into the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT) which placed ...
The bomb on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons. New Japanese research shows that bomb radiation increases risk of long term cancer. Radiation causes ionization in the molecules of living cells. The ions formed can react with the atoms in the cell causing damage.
Cells that are changed permanently may produce abnormal cells when they divide, perhaps become cancerous. Not only are there health risks, but the French economy just lost a contract to build 40 jets and French goods are being boycotted by a number of nations. Environmental agencies warn of the damage to the life and rock around the blast atoll. Defense Minister Charles Milton said, ‘Nuclear Tests should not be mixed up with the question of arms and industry contracts.’ Milton invited any scientist to attest that no wildlife was affected, after the tests have taken place. France states that because the blast is deep inside an underground volcano, no radioactivity can escape; it is kept inside the rock.
However, the French Atomic Energy Commission published that 3 out of 200 French nuclear tests since 1960 have affected the Mururoa atoll in some harmful way. Australian Environmental Minister John Faulkner said, ‘nuclear testing is extremely irresponsible.’ The small island nations near the test site in the Pacific for thousands of years have received their livelihood from the seas. Scientist believe that a serious threat to the ocean environment in the South Pacific could be posed because of the tests. A question many nations are asking is, if they are so harmless, why doesn’t France conduct the nuclear test closer to home?.
