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Gerboise Bleue (French: [ʒɛʁbwaz blø]; lit. ' Blue Jerboa ') was the codename of the first French nuclear test.It was conducted by the Nuclear Experiments Operational Group (GOEN), a unit of the Joint Special Weapons Command [1] on 13 February 1960, at the Saharan Military Experiments Centre near Reggane, French Algeria in the Sahara desert region of the Tanezrouft, during the Algerian War.
List of nuclear weapons tests of France. France executed nuclear weapons tests in the areas of Reggane and In Ekker in Algeria and the Mururoa and Fangataufa Atolls in French Polynesia, from 13 February 1960 through 27 January 1996. These totaled 210 tests with 210 device explosions, 50 in the atmosphere.
The history of France's military nuclear program recounts the path that led France to develop a military nuclear program after World War II. The establishment of the French Nuclear Deterrence Force was based on a French nuclear testing program that began on February 13, 1960, and ended on January 27, 1996. In 2012, the Strategic Oceanic Force ...
e. France is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, but is not known to possess or develop any chemical or biological weapons. [4][5] France is the only member of the European Union to possess independent (non-NATO) nuclear weapons. France was the fourth country to test an ...
The Trinity test on 16 July 1945, near Socorro, New Mexico, was the first-ever test of a nuclear weapon (yield of around 20 kilotons). The Operation Crossroads series in July 1946, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, was the first postwar test series and one of the largest military operations in U.S. history.
Canopus (or Opération Canopus) was the codename of the first French two-stage thermonuclear test. It was conducted by the Pacific Carrier Battle Group (nicknamed Alfa Force) on 24 August 1968, at the Pacific Experiments Centre near Fangataufa atoll, French Polynesia. [1]
The history of France's civil nuclear program traces the evolution that led France to become the world's second largest producer of nuclear-generated electricity by the end of the 20th century, based on units deployed, installed capacity, and total production. Since the 1990s, nuclear energy has furnished three-fourths of France's electricity ...
The decision to arm France with nuclear weapons was made in 1954 by the administration of Pierre Mendès-France under the Fourth Republic. [3] President Charles de Gaulle, upon his return to power in 1958, solidified the initial vision into the well-defined concept of a fully independent Force de Frappe that would be capable of protecting France from a Soviet or other foreign attack and ...