Fifty-twoFrench cancer patients plan legal action charging that French authorities in 1986 failed to take adequate measures to protect the population following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, their attorney said today.
"Authorities at the time intentionally truncated the figures and played-down information on the scope of contamination," said Mr Christian Curtil.
He said the suits would be filed tommorrow on behalf of 52 people with cancer and related thyroid illnesses blamed on the radioactive fall-out from the blast at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine.
Two associations - one representing thyroid cancer victims and the second a research organisation on radioactivity - have also joined the suit.
Mr Curtil charged that unlike its European neighbours France had failed to adopt adequate and not very costly protective measures after the accident.
Two other legal actions filed in France by a cancer patient who blamed his illness on the Chernobyl disaster have been thrown out of court in the last year.
AFP