French stiffen N-test resolve

Press, 21 June 1980, Page 5

French stiffen N-test resolve

N Z P A Paris The French nuclear explosion recorded on June 17 by a New Zealand seismic monitoring post in the Cook Islands reaffirms France’s determination not to slacken its efforts to develop the resources of its nuclear arsenal.

President Valery Giscard d’Estaing said last October that France’s nuclear potential' would go from 75 megatons in 1980 to 90 in 1985 — a force 4500 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Since France advanced from airborne experiments in 1975 to underground tests on the Pacific atoll of Mururoa, the explosions are no longer announced in advance. Nor are they

confirmed or denied officially after seismic detection.

The last known official total dates to January 1, 1975; 57 explosions, of which 12 were underground. Since then, observers have based their calculations on much guesswork, and estimate a total of between 80 and 90 tests.

According to specialists, the present experiments are aimed at miniaturising and strengthening nuclear warheads for the M-4 missiles that will go aboard the nuclear submarine Inflexible in 1985. The French Defence Ministry has denied persistent rumours that the neutron bomb is being tested.

• The announced increase in French nuclear potential will be caused primarily by the increased power of S-3 missiles — thermonuclear multi-mega-ton warheads with a range of more than 3000 kilometres, based in southern France. Nine have been positioned, and the next nine will replace ballistic S-2 missiles in 1982. The increase cannot be calculated only in terms of megatons. Potential target areas will increase from 100’ to 200 when the M-4 missies — six to seven multiple warheads of 100 to 200 kilotons each and a 4000 km range- — equip the Inflexible and other submarines of the remodelled fleet.

Perfecting these multiple warheads is well under way, after a successful third experimental finding last November. With the adaptation of offshore oil-drilling methods, nuclear experiments at Mururoa after this year will be underwater as well as underground. Lodged more deeply in the hardest layers of rock, but more accessible because of new techniques, the test charges can be more powerful.

Future tests, therefore, may be of a bigger scope than the experiments of weak kilotonnage carried out so far at Mururoa.