From mosa@netcom.com Thu Sep 7 22:25:09 1995 From: mosa@netcom.com (Michele Lord) To: dave@sgi.sgi.com Xref: netcom.com misc.activism.progressive:40460 From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel) Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive Subject: FRENCH UPDATE 9/5/95 Followup-To: alt.activism.d Date: 7 Sep 1995 04:58:41 GMT Organization: PACH Lines: 104 Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu Resent-From: rich Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu /** disarm.ctb-npt: 233.0 **/ ** Topic: FRENCH UPDATE 9/5/95 ** ** Written 4:20 PM Sep 5, 1995 by ctb in cdp:disarm.ctb-npt ** \s To : Testing followers everywhere \a From: Bruce Hall at the CTB Clearinghouse Date: September 5, 1995 Re : French testing update CHIRAC SAYS FRANCE MAY CONDUCT FEWER TESTS, WILL WRAP UP SERIES WELL BEFORE MAY 31, 1996 French President Jacques Chirac told France2 TV today that France may conduct fewer nuclear tests and that France remained committed to a zero yield treaty. According to Reuters reporter John Chalmers, Chirac "said he may cut to six the eight planned underground tests and complete them far earlier than had been scheduled. 'Eight tests is the maximum, but as soon as we have enough data, naturally we will stop,' he told France 2 television in an interview. 'And most likely we will stop well before the date I indicated, which was May 31.' Chirac said that the tests would be France's last and would end once they yielded sufficient data to give France the ability to simulate nuclear explosions by computer. 'My aim is not to do eight tests. My aim is to ensure the reliability of our deterrent and also have the capability for simulation,' the Gaullist president said. 'For that purpose, six to eight further tests are needed.' The first of the series, which will break a moratorium on testing declared by Chirac's Socialist predecessor Francois Mitterrand in 1992, is expected at any moment. Chirac declined to say when the blasts would occur. 'They will take place the moment that the technicians judge right.' THE ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTS: "Chirac reaffirmed that at the end of the tests, 'France will sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty' and will support the zero option that would prohibit even small test blasts Washington has sought to continue. Earlier, underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau added his voice to the anti-nuclear outcry, pleading with Chirac to scratch the testing, which he said 'shows the power of the nuclear lobby.' Cousteau later announced his resignation from a government advisory body called the Council for the Rights of Future Generations, saying the 'future of our descendants is ... incompatible with the nuclear threat.'" SOURCES: "Chirac holds out prospect of fewer nuclear tests," John Chalmers, Reuters, September 5, 1995. "France-Nuclear," Sandy MacIntyre, The Associated Press, September 5, 1995 FRENCH POLYNESIAN PRESIDENT SAYS TEST THIS WEEK 09/05 0641 French Polynesian president says test this week (Date correct. Tahiti is east of International Dateline) By Michael Perry PAPEETE, Tahiti, Sept 4 (Reuter) - French Polynesia President Gaston Flosse said on Monday French nuclear testing would resume this week and foreign protesters such as Greenpeace, which staged a second raid on the test site, should leave his country. "The president of the (French) republic has asked me to go to Paris after the first experiment. I plan to go at the beginning of next week," Flosse said in an interview on Radio France Overseas (RFO) in the Tahitian capital Papeete. CLINTON ASKED FRANCE TO DELAY TEST After intense speculation that France's first test would occur on or about September 1, Reuters News Service reports that President Clinton asked France not to carry out the test while he was in Hawaii this weekend. According to Reuters, "Clinton was in Hawaii for ceremonies commemorating the victory over Japan 50 years ago. The newspaper Le Monde said Paris could hardly refuse since Washington had allowed France to fly nuclear fuel across U.S. territory to the South Pacific test sites over the last 30 years. Defense correspondent Jacques Isnard said nearly all requests for French DC8s carrying nuclear bomb parts to fly through American airspace had been granted. However, in 1996, 1973, and 1974 two Mirage bombers and a Jaguar jet which were to drop bombs into the sea around Moruroa were refused permission to fly over the United States, he said." In Monday's Washington Post, Foreign Service Correspondent William Drozdiak writes that, "U.S. officials reportedly warned the French that Clinton would be compelled to make a public condemnation of the nuclear blasts if one were detonated while he was in the Pacific Region." The Hawaii Coalition Against Nuclear Testing held two anti- nuclear testing demonstrations over the weekend to coincide with President Clinton's visit. Groups staged several demonstrations against French nuclear testing in San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Chicago, New York and at the French Embassy in Washington, DC. SOURCES: "US Requested Test Delay While Clinton in Hawaii," Reuter, September 4, 1995. FRANCE DEFENDS TEST PLANS AS NUCLEAR PROTESTS BUILD, William Drozdiak, Washington Post, September 4, 1995. ** End of text from cdp:disarm.ctb-npt ** *************************************************************************** This material came from PeaceNet, a non-profit progressive networking service. For more information, send a message to peacenet-info@igc.apc.org ***************************************************************************