The long half-life of France’s nuclear tests in Polynesia

A memorial in Papeete, the capital of Tahiti, commemorates the victims of French nuclear tests in the South Pacific islands of French Polynesia. © GREGORY BOISSY / AFP

Thirty years ago this week, on an island in the South Pacific, France conducted its final nuclear test – ending a programme that exposed thousands of people to radiation over decades. The islands of French Polynesia are still living with the fallout.

“It started with my grandmother. She had thyroid cancer during the Nineties. Then her first child, my auntie, had thyroid cancer too.”