France-Algeria relations: The lingering fallout from the first nuclear tests in the Sahara

Gerboise Bleue 

It was conducted by the Nuclear Experiments Operational Group (GOEN), a unit of the Joint Special Weapons Command on 13 February 1960, at the Saharan Military Experiments Centre near Reggane, French Algeria in the Sahara desert region of the Tanezrouft, during the Algerian War. General Pierre Marie Gallois was instrumental in the endeavour, and earned the nickname of père de la bombe A ("father of the A-bomb").

Name

Gerboise is the French word for jerboa, a desert rodent found in the Sahara. The color blue (Bleue) adjuncted is said to come from the first colour of the French Flag.

Test

Explosion

On April 11, 1958, French Prime Minister Félix Gaillard ordered a nuclear test in the first quarter of 1960. President Charles de Gaulle reaffirmed the decision after the French Fourth Republic collapsed in the May 1958 crisis.

Initial plans were proposed to detonate a nuclear bomb on French territory in the Argentella mine on the island of Corsica. These plans were abandoned after widespread protests on the island.

On 13 February 1960 at 7:04:00 UTC, the plutonium filled bomb was detonated atop a steel tower with a height of 100 metres. The command post was located 16 kilometres away from the blast. In order to study the immediate effects, military equipment was placed at varying distances from the epicenter, while jets flew overhead to take samples of radioactive particles. No journalists were allowed on site; instead, an eyewitness account was given to the French press, saying "the desert was lit up by a vast flash, followed 45 seconds later by an appreciable shock-wave"; an "enormous ball of bluish fire with an orange-red centre" gave way to the typical mushroom cloud.

With Gerboise Bleue, France became the fourth nuclear power, after the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom. Prior to this test, there had been no nuclear detonations for 15 months. Gerboise Bleue was by far the largest first test bomb up to that date, larger than the American "Trinity" (20 kt), the Soviet "RDS-1" (22 kt), or the British "Hurricane" (25 kt). The yield was 70 kilotons, bigger than these three bombs put together; In comparison, Fat Man, the Nagasaki bomb, was 22 kilotons, one-third as powerful.

As the atomic yield of a new bomb design cannot be precisely predicted, the French army planned an explosion between 60 and 70 kt. Gerboise Bleue was a total success, yielding the full designed power. However, because of the bomb's irregularly high yield, some experts believe that the bomb may have been "overfilled with plutonium to assure success".

Only two other A-bombs tested in the Sahara facilities were more powerful: Rubis (<100 kt, 20 October 1963), and Saphir (<150 kt, 25 February 1965). Both were detonated underground at the In Ekker facilities.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Warner D. Farr in a report to the USAF Counterproliferation Center "Progress in nuclear science and technology in France and Israel remained closely linked throughout the early fifties." Furthermore, according to Farr, "There were several Israeli observers at the French nuclear tests and the Israelis had 'unrestricted access to French nuclear test explosion data.'"

Fallout

Initial monitoring reported a radiation dose of 10 rad/h at 0.8 km from ground zero one hour after the blast, 10 rad/h at 28.5 km and 3 rad/h at 570 km. Monitoring at Fort Lamy (now N'Djamena), around 2,400 km from Reggane, reported 10−9 Ci/m3.

For decades, documentation of the Gerboise tests remained heavily classified by the French government. The Ministry of the Armed Forces had maintained that the radioactive effects on humans present at the site would be "weak", and "well below annual doses." However, persons present at the site have since stated that protection gear was extremely minimal at the time of testing. In addition, ex-military officers have come forward with stories of being used as test subjects to study the effects of nuclear radiation on humans. Immediately following the explosion of Gerboise Verte (which yielded <1 kiloton), soldiers were sent within a 1 km radius of the explosion site, where they practiced combat exercises and drove tanks around the area. In total, these subjects were exposed to high levels of radiation for three hours. Following the exercises, the soldiers state that they were given showers as the only means of decontamination.

Subsequent tests

After Gerboise Bleue in February 1960, France conducted until April 1961 three additional atmospheric tests in Reggane facility's Saharan Military Experiments Centre. They were only "emergency devices", with yields deliberately reduced to less than 5 kilotons.

Shortly after the final Gerboise bomb (Gerboise Verte), the French moved their nuclear testing to the mountainous In Ekker region, which housed an underground facility. In 1962, the Algerian War ended with the signing of the Évian Accords. Although the French military agreed to withdraw from Algeria within 12 months, Chapter III of the Évian Accords granted France "the use of a number of military airfields, the terrains, sites and installations necessary to her." It was because of this stipulation that France was able to continue nuclear testing in Algeria until 1966. With the underground tests the sequence designation was changed to jewel names, starting in November 1961 with Agate (<20 kt). On 1 May 1962, during the second test, the Béryl incident occurred, which was declassified many years later.

Five months after the last Gerboise A-bomb, the Soviet Union responded by breaking its atmospheric tests moratorium, settled de facto since late 1958 with the United States and the United Kingdom. The USSR conducted many improvement tests, starting in September 1961 with a series of 136 large H-bombs. The series included the most powerful bomb ever tested, the 50-megaton (50,000 kt) "Tsar Bomba", which was detonated over Novaya Zemlya.

Following the USSR, the United States reactivated its own atmospheric test program with a series of 40 explosions from April 1962 to November 1962. This series included two powerful H-bombs topping 7.45 Mt and 8.3 Mt.

China also launched its own nuclear program, resulting in the A-bomb "596" (22 kt) tested on 16 October 1964, and the H-bomb Test No. 6 (3.3 Mt), tested 17 June 1967.

In 1968, France detonated its first thermonuclear weapon, Canopus (2.6 Mt), at the new facility at Fangataufa, a desert atoll in French Polynesia.

All other French atomic-bomb tests, including Canopus, were carried out in French Polynesia from 1966 to 1996. The last bomb, Xouthos (<120 kt), was detonated on 27 January 1996.

International reactions

In France, the news of Gerboise Bleues success was generally met with satisfaction and national pride. President De Gaulle stated:

Hurray for France! Since this morning, she is stronger and prouder.

However, the nation faced many international critics following the nuclear test, especially from Africa. Just days after the test, all French assets in Ghana were frozen, "until such time as the effects of the present explosion and the future experiments referred to by the French Prime Minister become known." Morocco, which lays claim to the portion of the Sahara where the bomb was detonated, withdrew its ambassador from Paris just two days after the event. Other African nations expressed their disappointment with France's decision to test nuclear weapons in the Sahara, citing fears of radioactive fallout and the safety of their citizens.

Programme

• 13 February 1960: Gerboise Bleue ("blue jerboa"): 70 kt
• 1 April 1960: Gerboise Blanche ("white jerboa"): <5 kt
• 27 December 1960: Gerboise Rouge ("red jerboa"): <5 kt
• 25 April 1961: Gerboise Verte ("green jerboa"): <1 kt

Gerboise Rouge was followed by a joint exercise, in which infantry, helicopters and armour reconnoitered the contaminated area.

Gerboise Verte was intended to yield between 6 and 18 kilotonnes, but effectively yielded less than 1. Like Gerboise Rouge, it was followed by a joint exercise in the contaminated area, codenamed Garigliano. The test had been patched up hastily and fired prematurely because of the Algiers putsch, as it was feared that the nuclear bomb could fall in the hands of seditious elements. As a result, the bomb yielded less than 1 kiloton, 10 times less than the intended output.

Later effects

After the tests, nuclear fallout was detected as far away as Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Sudan.

In 2005, the Algerian government asked for a study to assess the radioactivity of former nuclear testing sites. The International Atomic Energy Agency published the report suggesting that Gerboise Bleue explosion site had the second highest caesium-137 surface levels of the four tests of the series, with a residual surface activity between 0.02 and 2.0 MBq/m2 over a surface area of about 1 km2. The same report showed that the fallout of the bomb were contained in a circular area of less than 1 km in diameter. It also stated that these levels were not enough to warrant intervention and did not pose a threat to visitors of the area or inhabitants of Reggane.

In 2009, the French government agreed to compensate victims who had been exposed to nuclear radiation as a result of the testing in Algeria and French Polynesia. The government also agreed to release additional documents which detailed how the tests had been carried out.

According to the French NGO ACRO, Saharan dust blown northwards by strong seasonal winds to France in early 2021 carried measurable levels of radioactive caesium-137 attributable to the Gerboise tests.

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Dealing with a Nuclear Past: Revisiting the Cases of Algeria and Kazakhstan through a Decolonial Lens

BBC :

The continued fallout from the nuclear tests carried out by France in the desert of its former colony, Algeria, continues to pollute relations between the two countries more than 60 years later, as Maher Mezahi reports from Algiers.

France in Algeria - key dates

1830: France occupies Algiers

1848: After an uprising led by rebel leader Abd-el-Kader, Paris declares Algeria to be an integral part of France

1945: Thousands killed in pro-independence demonstrations in Sétif

1954-62: Algerian War of Independence

1962: Algeria becomes an independent state

1960-66: Nuclear tests allowed to continue after independence
____________________________

On the morning of 13 February 1960, just 45 minutes after the French army detonated an atomic bomb as a test in the Algerian Sahara, President Charles de Gaulle sent a message to his army minister.

"Hoorah for France," read the note.

"This morning she is stronger and prouder. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you and those who have achieved this magnificent success."

The detonation of the plutonium-filled bomb - known as Blue Jerboa - and the subsequent 16 explosions of nuclear weapons in Algeria were seen as a display of French strength and development.

At the time, Algeria was a French colony.

Yet the atmosphere on the ground, where 6,500 French engineers, soldiers and researchers worked on the project alongside 3,500 Algerian manual labourers, was less celebratory.

The bomb had been placed on top of a 100m-tall tower before the explosion.

Witnesses recount feeling the ground shake and, when permitted to face the blast, seeing a gigantic mushroom cloud.

The extreme temperatures near the blast transformed the sand into black shards.

Blue Jerboa was three times more powerful than the bomb dropped by the US on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945, which destroyed everything within 1.6km (one mile) of the explosion.

The detonation of such a powerful weapon in south-western Algeria was justified by General Charles Ailleret, who was in charge of the operation and said "the total absence of all signs of life" was "essential in choosing the site".

Yet dozens of kilometres away, the inhabitants of the town of Reggane begged to differ.

  "In 1960 when the bomb detonated, there were more than 6,000 inhabitants. Reggane was not in the middle of nowhere"

Abderrahmane Toumi
Founder of charity for radiation sufferers

Abderrahmane Toumi's family moved to the oasis after the tests in 1965. But later in life he was so affected by the suffering of the local population that in 2010 he set up an association to fight for those who were suffering from the effects of nuclear radiation.

"In 1960 when the bomb detonated, there were more than 6,000 inhabitants. Reggane was not in the middle of nowhere," the 57 year-old told the BBC.

"From what we are told by researchers, long-term effects started around 20 years after the first bomb was detonated and they will continue to last for decades.

"Many of those who were contaminated have already passed away due to unknown medical causes. They were told they had rare illnesses but they didn't really know the specific nature of their illness," Mr Toumi explained.

Immediately after the Blue Jerboa blast, there were protests across the region as nuclear fallout from the bomb would be detected as far as Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Sudan.

There was also a demonstration in Leipzig, in what was then East Germany, by Malian students there denouncing the test which took place just a few hundred kilometres from their hometowns.

French President Charles de Gaulle presented a military honour to Gen Charles Aillere after the first test

After France signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, a 1998 French senate report stated that "French atmospheric explosions were the subject of increasing criticism from African countries neighbouring the Sahara".

"They did not understand why we would continue to use an obviously polluting technique despite all the precautions taken to minimize the fallout," the report said, without specifying what those precautions were.

After four tests above ground in the Reggane region, in 1961 the French authorities decided to conduct underground tests in In Ekker, 700km away in the picturesque Hoggar mountain range.

But even the underground tests caused pollution.

During the detonation of the bomb known as Beryl, for example, radioactive matter was spewed into the atmosphere because the underground shaft at the blast site was not properly sealed.

As the explosion shook the mountain range above, monitors quickly urged the officials away from the zone as the bomb had opened fissures in the mountain and nuclear waste seeped into the air.

Nine soldiers were heavily contaminated by the experiment, as were a slew of government officials who were invited to attend a viewing of the blast.

After more than a dozen underground nuclear tests near In Ekker, the French army shifted its experiments to French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean.

Yet, the fallout from French nuclear experimentation in the Sahara continues to pollute French-Algerian relations.

Local researchers estimate that thousands of Algerians have suffered the effects of nuclear radiation across the Algerian Sahara, and many of the sites are yet to be decontaminated.

The issue has taken on even more importance in the wake of a decision by the two nations to establish a commission with the purpose of proposing measures that would ease relations, which are still shaped by 132 years of colonisation.

 

In his report on that relationship, commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron, historian Benjamin Stora addressed the nuclear issue, saying that France and Algeria should work together to clean up the test sites.

But he did not talk much about compensation and his proposals were too vague for those Algerians who say they continue to suffer from the effects of the French tests.

"Stora is like a tailor. He sewed up exactly what France needs," laughs Mohamed Mahmoudi, a 49 year-old activist who believes he was exposed to radiation in the early 1990s while doing his military service near Reggane.

He says that at the time no-one told him of the risks of being in the region.

Yet, the fallout from French nuclear experimentation in the Sahara continues to pollute French-Algerian relations.

Local researchers estimate that thousands of Algerians have suffered the effects of nuclear radiation across the Algerian Sahara, and many of the sites are yet to be decontaminated.

The issue has taken on even more importance in the wake of a decision by the two nations to establish a commission with the purpose of proposing measures that would ease relations, which are still shaped by 132 years of colonisation.

 

In his report on that relationship, commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron, historian Benjamin Stora addressed the nuclear issue, saying that France and Algeria should work together to clean up the test sites.

But he did not talk much about compensation and his proposals were too vague for those Algerians who say they continue to suffer from the effects of the French tests.

"Stora is like a tailor. He sewed up exactly what France needs," laughs Mohamed Mahmoudi, a 49 year-old activist who believes he was exposed to radiation in the early 1990s while doing his military service near Reggane.

He says that at the time no-one told him of the risks of being in the region.

In early February, Algerian General Bouzid Boufrioua launched a scathing attack on his French counterparts in the military magazine, El Djeich.

"France must come to terms with its historic responsibilities," he said and referred to a 2017 treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, which no nuclear power signed or ratified.

"This is the first time that the international community has asked the nuclear powers to rectify the mistakes of the past."

For Mr Toumi, and the victims he speaks to on a daily basis, correcting errors of the past begins with decontaminating the polluted sites.

"There is nuclear waste underground and we do not even know where it is located," he says, referring to the fact that the Algerian government is yet to be handed complete maps of the French experiments in Reggane and In Ekker.

"Patients simply want to live in their hometowns without nuclear waste, that is all."

BBC