Monday 24 February 2025 
By: Hana Saada
ALGIERS– The French nuclear explosions in southern Algeria constitute “a premeditated state crime” against the Algerian people and are similar to a “delayed genocide” which continues to claim victims, affirmed the president of the National Association of Victims of these explosions, Pr. Amar Mansouri, deploring the fact that France is trying to “save time” on this file.
The French nuclear explosions in southern Algeria “are a premeditated state crime against a defenseless people and against humanity,” Pr. Mansouri told APS on the eve of the commemoration of the 63rd anniversary of these nuclear explosions.
He added that these explosions were carried out by France “in full knowledge of the dangers of this weapon”, qualifying this fact as “delayed genocide” which continues to “claim victims among the population of southern Algeria”.
While noting France’s “fully responsibility” for this, he recalled that General de Gaulle had implemented the French nuclear plan in 1945, despite the shock wave of the Hiroshima explosions in Japan. “Aiming to enter the nuclear club through the front door, France has abused Algerian soil in defiance of the local population, but also of the UN resolution and the moratorium of the nuclear powers prohibiting aerial nuclear tests, because of their pollutants’ effects on the globe”, he commented.
“When France had planned dosimeters to assess the doses of radiation received by the inhabitants of the Sahara, it was not out of concern for their health, but for the needs of scientific studies. And even when France enacted the Morin law, the term of recognition stipulated therein is intended for French soldiers and not for Algerians,” he lamented.
Regarding the number of victims of these explosions, which would be up to 42,000, according to data from the National Organization of Mujahideen (ONM), the researcher considered that this figure “is below reality, because since 1962, the number of people who died as a result of these tests continued to increase”.
Besides, Pr. Mansour affirmed that “France is entirely responsible for these explosions, but it refuses to recognize its crimes”.
Referring to the policy of “double standards” practiced by the former colonizer, Pr. Mansouri called on France to recognize its colonial crimes, compensate the victims and clean the sites infected.
“There are several mechanisms for settling this dispute, either in a bilateral framework or through international justice”, noted the same official who suggested the organization, under the aegis of the UN, of an international conference on that question.
“France carried out 57 explosions, additional tests and nuclear experiments in Algeria”, noted the Algerian researcher.
The assessment of the total power of the French nuclear explosions in Algeria between 1960 and 1966 is 600 kilotons, that is to say more than 46 times the Hiroshima bomb and more than 28 times that of Nagasaki”, specified the expert, pointing out that “significant quantities of plutonium, whose half-life is 24,400 years, have been dispersed over thousands of hectares”.
In the same vein, he indicated that “to carry out this military nuclear program in the Algerian Sahara, France has mobilized 24,000 French civilians and soldiers, including 2,000 permanently”. However, according to Mansouri, “the number of Algerians involved in this program is still unknown. The archives still remain under the seal of defense secrecy in France. Nevertheless, thousands of Algerians have certainly been infected.
While France has not recognized any Algerian victim to date, Amar Mansouri referred to the United Kingdom which, after carrying out nuclear tests in Australia, had decontaminated certain regions and compensated the victims.
“What matters now is the future. We would like to prevent further casualties, as sandstorms can carry radioactive waste particles all over sub-Saharan Africa and even as far as North Africa and southern Europe,” concluded Professor Mansouri.