French Bomb Exploded

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31767, 26 August 1968, Page 1

French Bomb Exploded

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

PARIS, August 25.

France became the fifth H-bomb Power with the test last night of a thermonuclear device in the South Pacific.

The test took place near Fangataufa atoll, 750 miles south of Tahiti, said an Armed Forces Ministry communique.

The explosion was of “great power,” the Ministry said, but gave no further details of the type or size of the blast

France now becomes the fifth member of the so-called “atomic club” to test an Hbomb. The United States exploded one in 1952, the Soviet Union in 1953, Britain in 1957, and China in 1967.

Japan and other countries bordering the Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Peru; have all protested this year at the French

series of nuclear tests In the Pacific.

Japan Protests In Tokyo today, the Foreign Ministry’s official spokesman said the Government and people of Japan, the only nation bombed by atomic weapons, strongly protested at the French tests and demanded an immediate halt to the series. Complete nuclear disarmament was the only path to true world peace, he said. French Critics

The experiments have also brought critics at home, who say France’s severely strained economy cannot bear the cost involved. President de Gaulle, who personally gave the order for the tests, hailed yesterday’s thermonuclear blast as “a magnificent scientific, technical and industrial success, carried out for the independence and security of France by an elite group of its countrymen.”