Mounting Criticism Of French Tests

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31725, 8 July 1968, Page 11

Mounting Criticism Of French Tests

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PARIS, July 7. France is running into criticism at home—and abroad, from Japan, New Zealand, and Peru—over her imminent series of nuclear tests, expected to include the explosion of France’s first hydrogen bomb.

At home, the AntiNuclear Arms Movement has attacked the tests as “a heavy burden on the national budget.”

The tests, to be carried out on the Pacific atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa, showed that the French Government was “determined to continue with the creation of a criminal and ruinous strike force, which will have no other use than the massacre of innocent civil populations,” said the Anti-Nuclear Arms Movement, in a statement yesterday.

France is reported to have prepared three types of Hbomb for (test in the Pacific—and one. at least, is sure to be exploded, but not before the northern autumn, according to informed sources in Paris. But faced with the evident concern growing in the Pacific area, which was also expressed during last year’s tests, France is unlikely to explode more than one if the first test is successful.

Apart from the H-bomb—-which will be at least 10 times as powerful as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima—France is also ex-

pected to test warheads for the Polaris-type sea-to-air missiles, which are to arm her new nuclear submarine force. The remainder of the test series will be taken up with explosions mainly aimed at perfecting firing mechanisms and tests of the second generation ground to ground missile warbeads tested last year. The Japanese newspaper “Mainichi Daily News” said today that France was being “obstinate” in its determination to possess nuclear arms while other nations were sup porting nuclear nonproliferation movements. In a leading article, the mass circulation daily said: “France’s obstinate intention to own nuclear arms has been predicated on the fear that, without such arms, her: sovereignty and independencel may be compromised. “But now that the European , Economic Community has completely removed the internal tariffs and adopted common external duties, it is expected to move gradually tp ward political integration. Under such circumstances. France’s narrow - minded nationalism sounds rather anachronistic. "And the so-called glory of France ought to emanate from

the historical traditions and cultural achievements of which the French people can duly be proud, never from their possession of nuclear power, which might destroy the civilisation of mankind.