France will compensate victims of past nuclear tests in the south Pacific and the Sahara, and for the first time has formally recognised a link between the explosions and illnesses suffered by soldiers and civilians.

Defence Minister Herve Morin told reporters yesterday that France had conducted the tests as safely as possible, and had needed them to build up a credible nuclear deterrent and emerge as a global nuclear power.

"Thirteen years after the end of tests in the Pacific... it's time for our country to be at peace with itself, thanks to a system of compensation and mending the damage that was suffered," he told a news conference.

Some veterans who worked on the tests in Algeria and French Polynesian atolls in the Pacific have reported they were ordered to lie down and cover their eyes during the explosions, while wearing nothing more than shorts and T-shirts.

Several said they were told to drive or sail into the damaged area immediately after the blast to examine the impact.

France had long refused to recognise officially a link between the tests, which ended in 1996, and diseases afflicting some of the 150,000 army and civilian staff who were at the sites.

"The burden of proof will be reversed: victims will no longer have to prove that their illness is due to the nuclear tests, but it will be up to the state to contest that," Mr Morin said, listing the principles of the proposed compensation scheme.

He also said compensation would no longer depend on whether victims were military staff, civilian staff or residents, and would apply to all nationalities.

France ran a total of 210 nuclear tests, in Algeria between 1960 and 1966, then in French Polynesia between 1966 and 1996.