Virtual Museum of COLONIALISM

The “Moruroa Files” investigative project was made public in July 2021. It was jointly developed by INTERPRT, an international research collective specializing in environmental law and spatial justice, and Disclose, a France-based investigative journalism organization. The project was further supported by Sébastien Philippe, a renowned expert in nuclear safety and nuclear non-proliferation and a researcher at Princeton University.

The primary objective of the Moruroa Files is to clearly expose the impacts of France’s nuclear tests in French Polynesia and to make public official documents that had been concealed for decades.

The project is based on an in-depth analysis of numerous documents originating from the French Ministry of the Armed Forces. These materials, which remained classified until 2013, consist of approximately 2,000 archival documents. They were released to the public only after a long legal struggle between the French state and the victims of nuclear testing.

In addition to archival research, the project includes more than 50 interviews, involving 18 residents of Polynesian atolls, 16 former military personnel, as well as judges, scientists, and civil society representatives active both in French Polynesia and metropolitan France.

Using 3D modeling tools and data-visualization methods, the project reconstructs for the first time the real-scale consequences of France’s most contaminating atmospheric nuclear explosions conducted between 1966 and 1974. Through this reassessment of radioactive contamination, the project demonstrates that the primary victims of these tests were civilian populations.

This project holds major significance in exposing France’s colonial nuclear policy.

The “Moruroa Files” project (document collection):

https://moruroa-files.org/en/

Note: This website contains extensive and detailed information. It is therefore appropriate to include it as a reference link in the museum.