Tuesday, November 21, 1995


   PARIS (Reuter) -- France staged a fourth nuclear test in the South
Pacific Tuesday, defying a host of nations which just last week called
for an end to its underground blasts.
   Carried out at the French Polynesian atoll of Mururoa, the latest
test looked likely to be overshadowed in the media by a peace agreement
ending the four-year Bosnia war.
   But angry reactions were swift from Australia and New Zealand, the
most vocal critics of President Jacques Chirac's break with a three-year
moratorium of testing.
   New Zealand Foreign Minister Don McKinnon said he was "exasperated
and disgusted" by the latest test and described it as "totally
unacceptable."
   Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating's office said he was appalled
and said the test showed continued disregard for the South Pacific
region's feelings.
   The Defense Ministry said the blast, carried out at 10:30 p.m. Paris
time, 4:30 p.m. EST, was equivalent to less than 40,000 tons of
conventional explosives and was aimed at developing capacity to simulate
tests on computer.
   The New Zealand Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences said the
explosion measured 15 kilotons, equivalent to 15,000 tons of ordinary
explosives, roughly equivalent to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima,
Japan, in 1945.
   Gaullist Chirac, who had angrily cancelled talks with three European
allies over their support for a U.N. resolution condemning nuclear
tests, Tuesday thanked Britain, Germany, Spain and Greece for their
backing on the issue.
   He had scrapped a summit with Italy and visits due this week by the
Belgian and Finnish prime ministers after they were among 10 European
Union partners who voted for a draft resolution in the U.N.'s
disarmament committee last Thursday.
   In the U.N. vote, 95 nations voted for a resolution deploring nuclear
testing and urging an immediate halt to all tests, 12 voted against and
45 abstained.
   French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette publicly accused EU
partners of hypocrisy Monday for adopting resolutions in the Western
European Union that defined the French and British nuclear deterrents as
contributing to Europe's security, yet voting against Paris at the
United Nations.
   "You've got to be very hypocritical to say white one day and black
the following day," he said.
   However, French officials said de Charette did not raise the matter
formally at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels and had
stressed that he did consider there was a crisis in the EU on the issue.
   Critics replied that France was ill-placed to fault its partners for
lacking solidarity since it did not consult them before resuming nuclear
testing.
   The latest series of tests broke a 1992 moratorium on French nuclear
testing which was declared by Chirac's predecessor, Socialist Francois
Mitterrand.
   The first in the series took place on September 5, the second on
October 2 and the third on October 27.
   Chirac has said France will probably stage six tests rather than the
eight he originally announced in June.  But he denies that the series
has been cut short because of the outcry against the tests abroad.
   The French president has promised to sign a treaty banning tests
forever once the series is completed, by May 31 at the latest.  He says
France needs the tests to validate a new warhead for its submarine-based
missiles and acquire simulation capacity.
   The tests have also been unpopular in France, contributing to a dive
in Chirac's popularity.  Opinion polls show that while some 60 percent
of voters reckon that France needs a nuclear deterrent, an almost
identical proportion opposes the tests.