Les Apprentis Sorciers (1996) is an investigative documentary by Brigitte Rossigneux, specialist in defense issues at Canard Enchaîné and directed by André Gazut, is as sober as it is formidable: February 13, 1960, France carries out its first test atomic in the Algerian Jebel with what now appears to be a murderous amateurism. As proof, the testimonies of the families of soldiers who very likely died as a result of irradiation, without the French State ever deigning to consider their cases. "We were like guinea pigs up there," said a former conscript. All sitting on the ground, turning their backs to the explosion, their heads lowered in their arms because only the officers had protective glasses."

The testimonies follow one another, each more damning than the last, on the irresponsibility of the military authorities. But what does it matter about a few "radioactivated" soldiers: with this bomb, de Gaulle wanted to impress Khrushchev. The writer Jean Vautrin, assigned at the time to the army cinema service, participated in the filming of the event. He says that the sound recordist missed the tremendous sound of the explosion and that they therefore copied that of an American bomb: a cute anecdote if it were not also the chilling metaphor of the unconsciousness which presided over the arms race since the Second World War.