Roger Belbéoch (1928-2011), a physicist specializing in particle acceleration and ionizing radiation, was working as a researcher for the CNRS when he became interested in the effects of such radiation. In the heat of the Survivre et vivre movement to criticize science, founded in 1970, he began to articulate a work critical of nuclear technology and the deceptions that have accompanied it since its birth.
He collaborated regularly with La Gazette Nucléaire, a magazine published by the Association of Scientists for Information on Nuclear Energy (gsien), of which he was a member, as well as with Lettre d'Information of the Stop Nogent-sur-Seine Committee, a committee antinuclear organization of which he was also a member. In collaboration with his wife, the also physicist Bella Goldsztein (1928-2016), he wrote Tchernobyl, une catastrophe. Quelques éléments pour un bilan, Allia, Paris, 1993 (republished by La Lenteur, 2012), and Sortir du nucléaire c'est possible avant la catastrophe, L'Esprit Frappeur, Paris, 1998.