On 13 February 1960, France conducted its first nuclear test, code-named “Gerboise Bleue” (Blue Desert Rat). The day marked the beginning of a series of four atmospheric nuclear tests at the Reganne Oasis, in the Sahara Desert of Algeria. With an explosive yield of 70 kilotons, Gerboise Bleue was relatively large for a country’s first nuclear test, around four times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.



Upon completion of the Gerboise test series, France switched to underground testing at another site in the Algerian Sahara, named In Ecker, where it conducted a further 13 nuclear tests until 1967. Subsequent French nuclear testing was conducted at French Polynesian atolls in the South Pacific, site of atmospheric thermonuclear tests, starting with the 2.6 megaton Canopus test in August 1968.