Contenu du sommaire : Les essais nucléaires français : enjeux internationaux et transnationaux

How can one organize secrecy around an activity as remarkable, and as sensitive, as atmospheric nuclear testing? How can one control information that is –literally– carried on the wind? Based on primary sources, this article examines the original regime of secrecy organized around the French test sites between 1957 and 1974, and the issues it raises in terms of information control and democracy. It shows how the concern over the protection of “strategic secrets” around the French arsenal, though impossible to keep, was combined with one of concealing “dark secrets” –the measurements of radioactivity– thus rendering the extent of the radioactive contamination invisible.

In 1959, as international opposition to planned French nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara grew, Britain was faced with the unique situation of having to preserve its relationship with France whilst securing post-independence ties with Nigeria, soon to become independent. In its attempt to overcome this dilemma, and in the absence of precise information about French plans, Britain produced technical arguments which suggested that tests in the Sahara would be safe. When fallout from Gerboise Bleue, the first French nuclear test, reached Nigeria in February 1960, Britain consolidated the narrative on the safety of these tests ex post facto. Based on multinational archival documents, this article reconstructs the tight timeline of the months surrounding Gerboise Bleue. In doing so, it offers a comparative and connected history which pays particular attention to the context of African decolonisation.

The geography of Western European reactions to French nuclear tests in the Pacific stems from a conjunction of political, strategic and cultural factors exacerbated by the ruptures of the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as the rise of environmentalism, the emancipation of youth, the end of the decolonization process, the revival of Third Worldism, but also East-West detente, which favored neutralism and shifted tensions towards the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Africa. The result was a North-South European divide that suggested a southern Europe largely won over to the French cause, while the main criticisms came from the Northern part of the continent, with two exceptions: the United Kingdom and the FRG.

While Australia and New Zealand were the main opponents of French nuclear testing in the Pacific, protests also came from Latin American countries, particularly Peru. The government of General Juan Velasco Alvarado took the lead in the anti-nuclear campaign in South America and broke off relations with France in July 1973. But this break-up (until 1975) was mainly political and diplomatic, as Lima maintained its economic and commercial relations with Paris and failed to draw other Latin American nations into the fold. The Peruvian opposition to the French tests contributed to reinforcing the anti-colonial and Third World dimension of the nuclear protest. Finally, this crisis illustrates the difficulties for France to conduct its nuclear policy in the Pacific while preserving its influence with Latin American countries.

The proposed reflection shows the very peripheral character of the nuclear tests in the French strategic debate. This does not prevent its appearance at key moments: the rallying of oppositions to the bomb in the 1970s, the elections of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterrand, the Rainbow Warrior scandal and finally the reflections of a Socialist Party back in opposition in 1986. Each time, the media manifestation of the French tests in the Pacific ends with a reinforcement of the doctrine of deterrence, marks a stronger presidentialization of its management, and contributes to the idea that there is a “consensus” on military nuclear power.

Opposition to nuclear tests developed in Australia and New Zealand even before the establishment of the French Experimental Centre in Polynesia. At first, France paid little attention to the protests emanating from the Pacific States and Territories, but the protests gained in strength and were not very sensitive to the very defensive argument by which Paris asserted the harmlessness of its atomic tests. At the turn of the 1970s, France tried to use the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community as an economic lever to force New Zealand to moderate its opposition. This episode illustrates the importance of nuclear power in political debates in France and in New Zealand and raises the question of how to overcome it, whether through diplomacy or economics.

While the announcement of the first nuclear tests in the Insular Pacific induced a phenomenon of “global rallying” in New Zealand from 1963 to 1996, the implementation of a far-reaching network, galvanized by several actors and multiple scales actions, turned New Zealand into a disapproving voice to which people paid attention. As a consequence, New Zealand happened to be the spearhead of the struggle against French nuclear tests, which took place in the South Pacific. Nonetheless, the real strength of the New Zealand's condemnation of the French nuclear experiments is that the country became a voice for the insular nations of the Pacific, while the diplomatic network of New Zealand transmitted their protests to the French government. Henceforth the involvement of this country in its surrounding area, partly inherited from this period of disapproval, can still be seen in New Zealand's current foreign policy. This perhaps underlines the fact that New Zealand hopes to remain as the spokesperson of the area.

The Evangelical Church of French Polynesia (EEPF) became autonomous from French missionaries in 1963, when the Centre d'expérimentation du Pacifique (CEP) was built. The church quickly imposed a silence on nuclear energy. However, in the 1970s, new theologies rooted in an Oceanic and anti-colonial context weakened this position. A commitment against nuclear energy was affirmed, in the mirror of an indigenisation of the institution which did not fail to reveal intergenerational tensions.