20 Jul 2012

France prepared to alter nuclear compensation law

2:47 pm on 20 July 2012

The French overseas territories minister, Victorin Lurel, is reportedly prepared to alter the nuclear compensation law that applies to the former weapons testing area in French Polynesia.

French Polynesia's Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party says the minister has told the National Assembly's law commission that the so-called Loi Morin will be changed to extend the area in which compensation claims can be lodged.

The law, which is named after a former French defence minister, has been widely criticised for being too restrictive although for the first time France acknowledged that its tests weren't clean.

The move by the new French government comes as France's national institute of health and medical research has found a link between the weapons test and serious fall-out releated illnesses in six of the 15 cases it studied.