Gerboise Bleue (nuclear test)
Gerboise Bleue | |
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Gerboise Blanche → |
Gerboise Bleue (French:
Name
Gerboise is the French word for
Test
Explosion
On April 11, 1958, French Prime Minister Félix Gaillard ordered a nuclear test in the first quarter of 1960. President Charles de Gaulle reaffirmed the decision after the French Fourth Republic collapsed in the May 1958 crisis.[5]
On 13 February 1960 at 7:04:00 UTC,[6] the plutonium filled bomb was detonated atop a steel tower with an altitude of 100 metres. The command post was located 16 kilometres away from the blast. In order to study the immediate effects, military equipment was placed at varying distances from the epicenter, while jets flew overhead to take samples of radioactive particles. No journalists were allowed on site; instead, an eyewitness account was given to the French press, saying "the desert was lit up by a vast flash, followed 45 seconds later by an appreciable shock-wave"; an "enormous ball of bluish fire with an orange-red centre" gave way to the typical mushroom cloud.[7]
With Gerboise Bleue, France became the fourth nuclear power, after the
As the atomic yield of a new bomb design cannot be precisely predicted, the
Only two other A-bombs tested in the Sahara facilities were more powerful: Rubis (<100 kt, 20 October 1963), and Saphir (<150 kt, 25 February 1965). Both were detonated underground at the In Ekker facilities.
According to Lieutenant Colonel Warner D. Farr in a report to the
Fallout
Initial monitoring reported a radiation dose of 10
For decades, documentation of the Gerboise tests remained heavily classified by the French government. The
Subsequent tests
After Gerboise Bleue in February 1960, France conducted until April 1961 three additional atmospheric tests in Reggane facility's Saharan Military Experiments Centre. They were only "emergency devices", with yields deliberately reduced to less than 5 kilotons.
Shortly after the final Gerboise bomb (Gerboise Verte), the French moved their nuclear testing to the mountainous In Ekker region, which housed an underground facility. In 1962, the Algerian War ended with the signing of the Évian Accords. Although the French military agreed to withdraw from Algeria within 12 months, Chapter III of the Évian Accords granted France "the use of a number of military airfields, the terrains, sites and installations necessary to her."[14] It was because of this stipulation that France was able to continue nuclear testing in Algeria until 1966. With the underground tests the sequence designation was changed to jewel names, starting in November 1961 with Agate (<20 kt). On 1 May 1962, during the second test, the Béryl incident occurred, which was declassified many years later.
Five months after the last Gerboise A-bomb, the Soviet Union responded by breaking its atmospheric tests moratorium, settled de facto since late 1958 with the United States and the United Kingdom. The USSR conducted many improvement tests, starting in September 1961 with a series of 136 large H-bombs. The series included the most powerful bomb ever tested, the 50-megaton (50,000 kt) "Tsar Bomba", which was detonated over Novaya Zemlya.
Following the
China also launched its own nuclear program, resulting in the A-bomb "
In 1968, France detonated its first
All other French atomic-bomb tests, including Canopus, were carried out in French Polynesia from 1966 to 1996. The last bomb, Xouthos (<120 kt), was detonated on 27 January 1996.
See also List of nuclear weapons tests of France.
International reactions
In France, the news of Gerboise Bleues success was generally met with satisfaction and national pride. President De Gaulle stated:
Hurray for France! Since this morning, she is stronger and prouder.[15][16]
However, the nation faced many international critics following the nuclear test, especially from Africa. Just days after the test, all French assets in Ghana were frozen, "until such time as the effects of the present explosion and the future experiments referred to by the French Prime Minister become known."[7] Morocco, which lays claim to the portion of the Sahara where the bomb was detonated, withdrew its ambassador from Paris just two days after the event. Other African nations expressed their disappointment with France's decision to test nuclear weapons in the Sahara, citing fears of radioactive fallout and the safety of their citizens.
Programme
- 13 February 1960: Gerboise Bleue ("blue jerboa"): 70 kt
- 1 April 1960: Gerboise Blanche ("white jerboa"): <5 kt
- 27 December 1960: Gerboise Rouge ("red jerboa"): <5 kt
- 25 April 1961: Gerboise Verte ("green jerboa"): <1 kt
Gerboise Rouge was followed by a joint exercise, in which infantry, helicopters and armour reconnoitered the contaminated area.[13]
Gerboise Verte was intended to yield between 6 and 18 kilotonnes, but effectively yielded less than 1.[13] Like Gerboise Rouge, it was followed by a joint exercise in the contaminated area, codenamed Garigliano.[13] The test had been patched up hastily and fired prematurely because of the Algiers putsch, as it was feared that the nuclear bomb could fall in the hands of seditious elements.[17] As a result, the bomb yielded less than 1 kiloton, 10 times less than the intended output.
Later effects
After the tests, nuclear fallout was detected as far away as Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Sudan.[18]
In 2005, the Algerian government asked for a study to assess the radioactivity of former nuclear testing sites. The International Atomic Energy Agency published the report suggesting that Gerboise Bleue explosion site had the second highest caesium-137 surface levels of the four tests of the series, with a residual surface activity between 0.02 and 2.0 MBq/m2 over a surface area of about 1 km2.[19] The same report showed that the fallout of the bomb were contained in a circular area of less than 1 km in diameter.[20] It also stated that these levels were not enough to warrant intervention and did not pose a threat to visitors of the area or inhabitants of Reggane.
In 2009, the French government agreed to compensate victims who had been exposed to nuclear radiation as a result of the testing in Algeria and French Polynesia. The government also agreed to release additional documents which detailed how the tests had been carried out.[21]
According to the French NGO ACRO, Saharan dust blown northwards by strong seasonal winds to France in early 2021 carried measurable levels of radioactive caesium-137 attributable to the Gerboise tests.[22]
See also
- Agate (French first underground A-bomb)
- Canopus (French first atmospheric H-bomb)
- Force de Frappe
- List of nuclear weapons tests of France
- List of states with nuclear weapons
- Nuclear weapons and France
- History of nuclear weapons
Notes
- ^ Physician Pierre Billaud reported a yield of 60 kt. See External links.
References
- ISBN 978-1-5848-7574-1.
- ^ a b Senate of the French Republic (15 December 1997). "French Senate report #179: The first French tests in the Sahara". senat.fr (in French). Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ISBN 978-1-5381-0684-6.
- ISBN 978-1-3519-9962-5.
- S2CID 245890893, retrieved 2022-01-20
- ^ French Nuclear Testing, 1960-1988 (Technical report). Natural Defense Resources Council. 1989. p. 25. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
- ^ a b "Nuclear Device exploded in the Sahara. - Afro-Asian Reactions. - Ghana freezes French Assets.- Moroccan Ambassador withdrawn from Paris". Keesing's Record of World Events. 6 (2): 17279. February 1960. Archived from the original on 2018-04-08. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
- ^ a b Rapport sur les essais nucléaires français (1960-1996) (PDF) (Technical report). Government of the French Republic. p. 118. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
- ^ a b French Senate report
- ISBN 978-0-7603-3502-4.
- ^ Farr, Warner D (September 1999), The Third Temple's holy of holies: Israel's nuclear weapons, The Counterproliferation Papers, Future Warfare Series, vol. 2, USAF Counterproliferation Center, Air War College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, retrieved July 2, 2006
- ^ Merchet, Jean-Dominique (2010-02-16). "Essais nucléaires : Gerboise verte, la bombe et le scoop qui font plouf... (actualisé-3)". Libération.
- ^ a b c d Essais nucléaires : Gerboise verte, la bombe et le scoop qui font plouf... (actualisé) Archived 2014-11-29 at the Wayback Machine, Jean-Dominique Merchet, Libération
- JSTOR 20689578.
- ^ Hourra pour la France ! Depuis ce matin, elle est plus forte et plus fière.
- ^ Il y a cinquante ans, la France réalisait son premier essai nucléaire, Jean-Dominique Merchet, Libération, 13 February 2010
- Le Nouvel Observateur, Vincent Jauvert, 5 February 1998
- ^ "France-Algeria relations: The lingering fallout from nuclear tests in the Sahara". BBC News. 26 April 2021.
- ^ Radiological Conditions at the Former French Nuclear Test Sites in Algeria: Preliminary Assessment and Recommendations (PDF) (Technical report). Vienna, Austria: International Atomic Energy Agency. 1 March 2005. p. 9. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
- ^ Radiological Conditions at the Former French Nuclear Test Sites in Algeria: Preliminary Assessment and Recommendations (PDF) (Technical report). Vienna, Austria: International Atomic Energy Agency. 1 March 2005. p. 10. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
- ^ Cereceda, Rafael. "Irony as Saharan dust returns radiation from French nuclear tests in the 1960s". euronews. Retrieved 3 March 2021.