65 years since used as French nuke tests, Algerians seek justice

When France‘s General Charles de Gaulle gazed across the vast Sahara of Algeria, he saw a proving ground for France’s nuclear ambitions. Years later, the same Sahara would become a radioactive prison for those who defied the post-independence regime.

One of France’s many transgressions against its former colony was transforming the North African state’s desert into a nuclear wasteland in pursuit of military supremacy.

Sixty-five years later, Algerian and international organisations are demanding accountability and justice. 

On Thursday, 13 February, Shoaa, a London-based Algerian human rights NGO, convened a conference with researchers and activists calling for justice. Their focus was France’s “nuclear colonialism.”

“Sixty-five years later, nuclear waste continues to poison the land, the health of indigenous people, and the fragile ecosystem of Algeria’s Sahara”, said Charles K. Johnson, policy director at the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

On 13 February 1960, France detonated its first nuclear bomb, Gerboise Bleue, near Reggane, a desert town. 

It was the beginning of France’s nuclear weapons program. Over the next six years, 16 more tests followed, first in Reggane and later at In Ekker, a more remote Saharan region inhabited by Tuareg nomads.

The French military had assured the world that the blast zone was remote, but the desert was not empty. More than 30,000 people lived near the test site, unaware they were part of an experiment that would stretch across decades. Tuareg nomads, farmers, and villagers soon felt the effects—searing headaches, mysterious illnesses, animals and children born with deformities.

In the years that followed, the wind carried radioactive dust as far as Khartoum, Sudan, say researchers.

Even after Algeria won independence in 1962, nuclear tests continued under a secret clause in the “Évian Accords”, allowing the French military to exploit Algerian territory for several more years.

Impact of French nuclear tests on Algeria

The result became a landscape riddled with radioactive contamination and generations of Algerians exposed to harmful radiation.

“For communities near the testing sites, families suffer from severe health issues—cancers, congenital disabilities, respiratory diseases”, explains Sophie Chamelin, a researcher examining the impact of nuclear tests in Algeria.

“Many who were exposed to fallout have since died from radiation-related illnesses.”

The fallout was not just theoretical. A radioactive cloud from a 1962 test sickened at least 30,000 Algerians, according to the country’s official APS news agency in 2012.

France buried radioactive waste from the tests in the desert sands, and for decades, it refused to disclose the locations.

Today, Paris insists it has handed over maps pinpointing the burial sites, a claim Algeria disputes.

In 2021, Algeria’s then-veterans affairs minister, Tayeb Zitouni, accused France of withholding topographical maps that would reveal the burial sites of radioactive and chemical waste—locations that, to this day, remain undiscovered.

The environmental and socio-economic consequences have been just as devastating.

Vast swaths of once-productive land remain uninhabitable. Local populations, unable to farm, have been forced to abandon traditional agricultural practices, fuelling cycles of poverty and displacement.

During Algeria’s internal unrest in the 1990s, Algerian authorities repurposed some of these nuclear-contaminated sites as detention camps.

From 1992 to 1995, political detainees were imprisoned in locations such as In M’Guel, Reggane, and Oued Namous—facilities that exposed them to dangerously high radiation levels.

Survivors report long-term health complications, including cancer and other radiation-induced illnesses. Many detainees did not survive.

“Evidence suggests detainees were treated as expendable, with no regard for their safety”, wrote War Resisters’ International in a January report.

“This dual injustice—arbitrary imprisonment in radioactive environments—remains an unresolved and overlooked chapter in Algeria‘s history.”

France’s half-hearted attempts to reconcile

In recent years, France has made limited gestures toward reckoning with this legacy. In 2010, it passed a law offering compensation to victims of nuclear testing. However, the law has proved woefully inadequate.

“The law was only translated into Arabic in 2023 and (…) some parts require online registration, which is not feasible for many Algerians in the Sahara”, explained researcher Sophia Chamelin.

“And it demands documentation proving their presence in the region during the tests—documents that were destroyed after independence, as many feared being accused of collaborating with the French.”

As of 2021, only one Algerian–a soldier stationed at a testing site— had received compensation out of 545 claims granted.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) reports that of the 50 Algerians who have filed claims.

Historian Benjamin Stora’s 2021 report on French colonialism recommended further joint research into the locations and consequences of nuclear tests. However, it fell short of proposing concrete actions—like site clean-up.

Algerian and international organisations say Paris’s gestures amount to little more than political lip service.

For example, Paris denied signing the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that obliges states to provide adequate assistance to individuals affected by the use or testing of nuclear weapons.

It was signed by 122 UN member states—but by none of the nuclear powers. France claimed the treaty was “incompatible with a realistic and progressive approach to nuclear disarmament”.

In September 2024, the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights sent letters to both the French and Algerian governments urging action—calling for accountability, transparency, and reparations for victims. Neither government responded.

Now that both states are in a deep diplomatic rift, sitting at the same table to discuss this seems more unlikely than ever.

“There’s no initiative from Algerian authorities to bring the case to the Human Rights Council”, said Rachid Aouin, head of Shoaa for Human Rights.

“Any activism on this issue is repressed. The government only uses it as a political tool against France, without any real effort to secure justice for victims,” Aouin added.