A French Polynesian group defending the rights of nuclear weapons test victims says two sick people in their 40s may have been irradiated before they were born.
Association 193 defends the rights of French Polynesia's nuclear test victims Photo: supplied FB
The Association 193 said the two women were diagnosed with cancer in 2017.
It said according to the French compensation commission they were found to be eligible for compensation on the basis that they were probably contaminated before birth.
The group's head Auguste Uebe Carlson said one of the women had always lived in Tahiti and never worked with the weapons testing programme.
He said this raised the question whether a woman could pass on the impact of radiation to her unborn child.
Father Carlson also said he carried out survey in Mangareva, which is close to the former weapons tests sites, and found that from 1966 onward all families reported cases of had still born babies.
He said he believed that the phenomenon was repeated in other areas of French Polynesia.
France tested its nuclear weapons in Moruroa and Fangataufa between 1966 and 1996.