仏核実験、ポリネシアの「ほぼ全人口」被ばく　調査報告書

【パリＡＦＰ＝時事】フランスが1966年から1996年にかけて太平洋で行った核実験では仏領ポリネシアの「ほぼ全人口」が被ばくしたものの、同国は同地域がさらされた放射線量を隠蔽（いんぺい）していたとする報告書を、調査報道機関ディスクローズが9日、公表した。（写真は仏領ポリネシアのトゥアモトゥ諸島で行われた核実験の現場）
　ディスクローズは、仏国防省が２０１３年に機密解除した軍の核実験関連文書約２０００ページを２年かけて分析。調査はディスクローズと英モデリング・調査会社インタープリト、米プリンストン大学の科学・国際安全保障プログラムが共同で実施した。
　報告書は１９７４年７月に行われた核実験「サントール」について、「被ばく量の科学的再評価に基づき私たちが計算したところ、当時のポリネシアのほぼ全人口に相当する約１１万人が汚染されていた」と結論。
　また調査結果を裏付けるため、核実験で生じた有毒な雲をモデル化した結果、「仏当局が５０年以上にわたり、核実験がポリネシアの人々の健康に与えた真の影響を隠してきた」ことが判明したと説明。住民の甲状腺被ばく線量について「私たちの推定値は、２００６年に仏原子力庁が出した値の２倍～１０倍高い」とした。
　ディスクローズによると、これまでにポリネシアで補償を受けた核実験被害者の数は、兵士と請負業者を除く民間人では６３人にとどまる。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/03/11-11:22）

France concealed the levels of radioactivity that French Polynesia was exposed to during French nuclear tests in the Pacific from 1966-1996, with almost the entire population of the overseas territory infected, a report said on Tuesday.
Online investigation site Disclose said it had over two years analysed some 2,000 pages of French military documents declassified in 2013 by the defence ministry concerning nuclear tests on the archipelago.
It worked alongside the British modelling and documentation firm Interprt as well as the Science and global security programme of the University of Princeton in the United States, it said.
For the Centaur test carried out in July 1974, according to our calculations, based on a scientific reassessment of the doses received, approximately 110,000 people were infected, almost the entire Polynesian population at the time, it said.
Using the modelling of toxic clouds to back up the findings, Disclose said it also showed how French authorities have concealed the true impact of nuclear testing on the health of Polynesians for more than 50 years.
It said the investigation was able to reassess the thyroid exposure to radioactive doses of the inhabitants of the Gambier Islands, Tureia and Tahiti during the six nuclear tests considered to be the most contaminating in the history of French tests in the Pacific.
Our estimates are between two and 10 times higher than those made by the French Atomic Energy Commission in 2006, Disclose said.
Disclose said its interpretation of existing data was different to that of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).
For example, for an aerial nuclear test called Aldebaran carried out in 1966 on the Mururoa atoll, CEA scientists considered that the local population only drank riverwater but not rainwater.
However, many inhabitants of this archipelago drank rainwater, according to the investigation.
It added the examination of data also showed that CEA estimates of radioactive soil deposits were under-estimated by more than 40 percent.
This CEA study served as the reference for the Compensation Committee for Victims of Nuclear Tests (CIVEN) for studying the files of victims of nuclear tests.
Up until now only 63 Polynesian civilians, excluding soldiers and contractors, have received compensation, according to the investigative media.