For people downvoting the parent, this is a "joke" in France (and based on his pseudo I guess he might be french). When the Chernobyl accident happened, french authorities told the population that the radioactive cloud haven't cross the french skies. But evidences quickly showed that it did over the France borders countries.

So we say here that it never happened because the cloud was blocked at the border.

It's now an historical reference of government lying to our face without second thoughts.

Ah, thanks for clarifying that.

If I may ask: aren't there mechanisms that prevent the French State from lying so blatantly to its citizenry? How was this ultimately found out?

When thyroid cancers started increasing in south east France, what was a rumor (imagine a cloud consciously avoiding France...) begins to be a proof that leaded to an investigation.

More infos (in English) here https://www.expatica.com/fr/news/country-news/France-hid-inf...

I'm afraid I don't know how it ended (I wasn't in France at that time)

Edit : it seems the case was dismissed (as it is often in France when government is implicated...) https://amp.rfi.fr/en/asia-pacific/20110907-french-court-dis...

We've learned a lot since Chernobyl.

We are still far from knowing everything about danger from radioactive fallout, but there has been a lot of research since then.

My grandmother got cancer too. Heck, so did my other grandmother.

Of course, neither of them were ever anywhere near Chernobyl...

Chernobyl was bigger. A lot bigger. Locating that source was not a challenge.