French Polynesia's social security agency, or CPS, has asked the French state to pay it $US770 million to cover the cost of care for victims of the French nuclear weapons tests.
The explosion from a French nuclear test at Mururoa in French Polynesia. France conducted 193 tests between 1966 and 1996. Photo: AFP
The demand to be reimbursed has been restated as a delegation of the French Compensation Commission begins a week-long visit to the territory.
According to the CPS, just over 9,500 people suffer from radiation-induced illnesses which it deems to be contracted as a result of the 193 nuclear tests.
Its latest reimbursement demand is the third, after unsuccessfully asking for $US240m in 2010 and then $US540m in 2015.
The advisory body, the Economic, Social, Environmental and Cultural Council, has meanwhile asked for the French compensation law to be again amended because almost half of the compensation applications by individuals keep being rejected.
The French Compensation Commission's head said in the last two years 10 times more applications had been approved than in the preceding 10 years.