Two more types of cancer have been added to France's list of conditions eligible for compensation over the nuclear weapons tests in French Polynesia.
Picture taken in 1971, showing a nuclear explosion in Mururoa atoll. Photo: AFP
In a decree, the French government has added gall bladder cancer and bile duct cancer to the illnesses for which nuclear test victims can lodge claims.
This brings to 23 the number of cancers recognised by the revised compensation law first introduced a decade ago.
The list includes thyroid, liver, stomach and kidney cancer.
Until 2009, France maintained that its 193 weapons tests were clean and didn't affect human health.
Most compensation claims had been thrown out in the first years after the law's adoption, prompting calls for a loosening of the criteria.
The revised law abolished the term negligible risk, but a new threshold for radiation exposure was introduced in December.
The change has caused controversy as ten claimants in Tahiti, whose cases are before the court, have been advised that they will be rejected after all.
