On this Day - France tests its first atom bomb

By 2006 there have now been over 2,000 nuclear tests worldwide, but on February 13th 1960 in Reggan, in the Sahara Desert, France detonated its first test. At that time Reggan, Algeria was a protectorate of France.

You can see a video of France testing its 3rd bomb at bbc.co.uk

The first bomb test by France had a yield of 60-70 kilotons (it was 12.5 kilotons of TNT used for the mob dropped on Hiroshima). hypertextbook.com states that: "The energy released by nuclear weapons is measured in tons, kilotons (thousands of tons), or megatons (millons of tons) of TNT. In international standard units (SI), one ton of TNT is equal to 4.184 x 109 joule (J)."

France conducted a total of 210 nuclear tests between February 13th 1960 and January 27th 1996.