MEMO | October 5, 2020
France should take initiative to solve the problem of the nuclear waste buried in the Algerian Sahara in the early 1960s, as no one knows its exact location, which is a classified military secret, the head of the Paris-based Observatory for Armament said.
In an interview with Radio France Internationale yesterday, Patrice Bouvre said: “When France suspended its nuclear tests in 1966, it simply buried the waste of the 17 experiments it conducted over the years.”
He added that Paris classified the location or locations of the buried nuclear waste and the documents related to the affair as “a military secret”, which remains to date.
As a result, there is no information available about the exact location of the nuclear waste buried in the Algerian desert, Bouvre explained.
He called on the French authorities to reveal the truth about this file and to cooperate with Algeria to clean up the areas contaminated by the nuclear waste that still exposes these regions to serious environmental damages.
France conducted 17 nuclear tests between 1960 and 1966 in the Algerian Sahara, and the waste from these experiments is buried in an unknown location in the area, hindering attempts to remove the radioactive materials and protect the population and the environment.