France has formally ceded its former navy command centre in Papeete to French Polynesia.
The transfer was signed by the French High Commissioner Dominique Sorain and the French Polynesian president Edouard Fritch.
The 3300 square metre site on the Papeete waterfront, worth more than US$6 million, had been earmarked for an information and documentation centre to commemorate the legacy of French nuclear weapons tests.
In 2018, the French National Assembly voted for such a transfer on condition that a nuclear museum was built on the site by 2023.
The plan to build such a centre dates back to the presidency of Francois Hollande as part of France’s acknowledgement of its nuclear legacy.
France used Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls for its tests between 1966 and 1996.
