A sad anniversary
Apr. 26th, 2006 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chani20 years ago Chernobyl disaster happened.
I was a student, living on the Riviera, in Nice, then. It was my last year in College (which in France means secondary school, just before High School). I remember the lies our government told us, I remember the fear we felt when the truth came out finally because southeastern France was the area where the radiation levels were the highest (Corsica was the most contaminated) and they didn't take any precautions.
French television has been showing many programms on several channels about Chernobyl, for a week. I don't know if it's that covered in other countries but here it was big probably because of that unbelievable State Lie that occured then. in 1986 J. Chirac was Prime Minister, it was the first year of "cohabition" between a right-wing government and a left-wing President, F. Mitterrand...and the Presidentials were to happen 2 years later.
They lied to us to protect the image of French Nuclear Industry and because of vote-catching, for the farmers were so important for the right wing. They hinted that Chernobyl radioactive cloud had stopped at the border (how convenient!), that the precautionary measures that were taken in Germany or Italy (where people were told not to eat fresh vegetables or milk product because they absorbed most radioactivity), were useless in France. They even made a scientist (who worked for the state-run SCPRI =Central Service for Protection against Radioactive Rays ) say that everything was fine until a well known physicist made him spill the beans during the news (the journalist was fired afterwards!).
People are still dying in Ukraine and will die in the future.
There's still a controversy about the effects of Chernobyl on public health, especially in France where scientists are divided. Whether people may have developped cancers because of Chernobyl or not, there's still one undeniable fact: the authorities deliberately suppressed information about the spread of radioactive fallout from Chernobyl disaster over France. And I lived in the most contaminated area....
I was a student, living on the Riviera, in Nice, then. It was my last year in College (which in France means secondary school, just before High School). I remember the lies our government told us, I remember the fear we felt when the truth came out finally because southeastern France was the area where the radiation levels were the highest (Corsica was the most contaminated) and they didn't take any precautions.
French television has been showing many programms on several channels about Chernobyl, for a week. I don't know if it's that covered in other countries but here it was big probably because of that unbelievable State Lie that occured then. in 1986 J. Chirac was Prime Minister, it was the first year of "cohabition" between a right-wing government and a left-wing President, F. Mitterrand...and the Presidentials were to happen 2 years later.
They lied to us to protect the image of French Nuclear Industry and because of vote-catching, for the farmers were so important for the right wing. They hinted that Chernobyl radioactive cloud had stopped at the border (how convenient!), that the precautionary measures that were taken in Germany or Italy (where people were told not to eat fresh vegetables or milk product because they absorbed most radioactivity), were useless in France. They even made a scientist (who worked for the state-run SCPRI =Central Service for Protection against Radioactive Rays ) say that everything was fine until a well known physicist made him spill the beans during the news (the journalist was fired afterwards!).
People are still dying in Ukraine and will die in the future.
There's still a controversy about the effects of Chernobyl on public health, especially in France where scientists are divided. Whether people may have developped cancers because of Chernobyl or not, there's still one undeniable fact: the authorities deliberately suppressed information about the spread of radioactive fallout from Chernobyl disaster over France. And I lived in the most contaminated area....
