After Moruroa: France in the South Pacific, and: Moruroa and Us: Polynesians' Experiences during Thirty Years of Nuclear Testing in the French Pacific (review)

After Moruroa: France in the South Pacific, by Nic Maclellan and Jean Chesneaux. Melbourne: Ocean Press, 1998. ISBN 1-876175-05-2, ii + 279 pages, maps, notes, bibliography, glossary, index. Paper, US$19.95; A$29.95.

Moruroa and Us: Polynesians' Experiences during Thirty Years of Nuclear Testing in the French Pacific, by Pieter de Vries and Han Seur. Lyon: Centre de Documentation et de Recherche sur la Paix et les Conflits, 1997. ISBN 2-9508291-5-5, v + 224 pages, maps, tables, glossary, bibliography. Paper, US$20.00.

From 1966 to 1996, France detonated nearly two hundred atomic bombs in the Tuamotu atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa. When France finally ceased its last round of tests, after violent demonstrations in Tahiti, and signed the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, it ended what Bengt Danielsson and other critics have called "nuclear colonialism" in French Polynesia. But two nagging questions remain: what will the territory do now that the Centre d'Expérimentation du Pacifique is closing down, and what health consequences of radioactive contamination, if any, has Paris kept secret from the local inhabitants in the interests of national security? These two books, one by longtime critics of French nuclear and colonial policies in the region, and the other by members of Europe Pacific Solidarity who are reporting findings from a survey among Polynesians affected by nuclear testing, address those questions.

Maclellan, of the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre in Suva, Fiji, says in his preface that After Moruroa is an update (and translation) of La France dans la Pacifique: De Bougainville à Moruroa, which he published in 1992 with Chesneaux, an emeritus historian at the Sorbonne. The opening chapters stress the links between French colonialism and nuclear testing, though Paris thinks of its Pacific territories as benevolently subsidized and "autonomous." Like Robert Aldrich and others, the authors regard World War II as a turning point in the French Pacific, because Paris wanted to regain its tarnished status, after humiliating defeat and Nazi occupation: it would grant greater self-government to its territories, in order to retain them and thus secure for itself the desired role of a middle-sized power with nuclear weapons and a globe-spanning presence.

The book traces French mythology about the Pacific from Bougainville's "paradise," through Gauguin and even Jules Verne and the surrealists, to a "grand design" based on "the facade of autonomy" (77). As late as 1986, France described mineral-rich New Caledonia as "an immense aircraft carrier" (80) to defend the region, while the Centre d'Expérimentation absorbed the largest French budgetary expenditure in the Pacific. Chesneaux reuses his "franconesia" label to portray anachronistic metropolitan pride in artificially subsidized outposts, in contrast to the enduring nationalism expressed by Kanak and Ma'ohi activists. The authors are critical of France's ongoing "charm offensive" (188) in the Pacific, as it offers money, military aid, diplomatic reconciliation, and francophonie (241), that is, the spread of French language and culture.

They argue convincingly that Paris wants to transform its habitual presence into a springboard to the mythic "Pacific century." French investment in the Asia-Pacific, and the appeal of exclusive economic zones that give France third rank in maritime domain after the United States and Russia, remain powerful attractions, and economic dependency keeps the majority of residents in French Pacific territories from supporting full independence. France promotes a problematic, 1789-derived vision of individual rights in an indivisible republic, rather than self-determination for colonized peoples. The authors say that French policy violates United Nations resolutions on decolonization and ask, "Can Pacific identity be maintained while advancing universal human rights?" (257). Their conclusion is that France will continue to play an important role in the region, but it should do so as an...