Vive le bombe! (2006)

This film provides an excellent insight into both a fascinating botched nuclear test in Algeria, in 1962, and to French attitudes towards war and nuclear weapons. Known as the Beryl accident, it was an underground nuclear test that breached containment, irradiating a number of French soldiers guarding the site. They were required to keep their exposure a secret, following eight months of hospitalization, in order not to "undermine French security" -- confirm that French nuclear technology wasn't necessarily all that it was cracked up to be! The film is particularly interesting because of what it reveals about the French attitude to their nuclear deterrant, which is particularly relevant today, as it is becoming more and more critical for the defense of Europe against threats from Russia, and as it is effectively being expanded to, and subsidized by, both Germany, and Poland. The French undersecretary of for defense who is central to the action here explicitly states that nothing is worse than War, and the purpose of this essential nuclear deterrant, is that France should never be threatened by war, again. Arguably, the purpose of the Maginot Line in 1939 was to ensure this, as well, but, that didn't work very well, at all! Arguably, the French just sat out WWII, not particularly caring who won, as long as they didn't lose millions of men, like they did in WWI. This is the reason that FDR thought France was a "failed state", and wanted France split up divided between the US and Britain. Churchill vetoed this, however, and backed DeGualle, saving France. Basically, since 1919, and the end of the First World War, the French have had enough of war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzlZtAMHHNM