French testing politically fixed —Mr Lange

Press, 5 October 1985, Page 8

French testing politically fixed —Mr Lange

By

JOHN COOMBER

of AAP through NZPA PA Wellington The French Government is politically unable to halt the nuclear testing programme at Mururoa Atoll, says the Prime Minister, Mr Lange. Mr Lange said the protests of countries like Australia and New Zealand had helped entrench the French Government to the point where it would continue the tests “even if there was no strategic, scientific or military imperative for them.” In an interview, Mr Lange suggested that countries opposing the tests should make less noise in future because their protests were having the reverse effect in France. Mr Lange welcomed the strong speech of the Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Sien, to the United ons on Wednesday as a continuing expression of Australian concern. However he said it did not strengthen New Zealand’s hand in protesting against the nuclear programme and the Rainbow Warrior bombing. Mr Hayden said that France had provoked a dispute by continuing the test programme and by ordering its agents to bomb the Greenpeace flagship. “It’s good to have a sense of solidarity ... in terms of morale ... but it has the reverse effect in France,” said Mr Lange. “Sometimes if a nation

finds itself beleaguered as a result of a misjudgment it can become even more strident against the world because it must be very hurtful to national morale to appear to have been pursuing a high purpose and to stumble. “Our protest seems to be generating an entrenched position on the part of the French because it becomes then a matter of their political credibility. “If France is seen ... to be giving way in the face of Antipodean, Anglo-Saxon pressures — which is the way it has been characterised in some parts of the French media — you’re not likely to (stop the tests).” Mr Lange suggested a new strategy to stop the testing “might involve as a tactic not talking about them so often." He said he had noticed that as the level of opposition had increased in the past the kilotonnage of nuclear tests had seemed to get correspondingly higher. The French Defence Minister, Paul Quiles, said in

Paris on Wednesday that France would not delay its tests “by a week, a day or even an hour,” despite protests against them. Mr Lange said: “It seems we need to start a more sophisticated diplomacy which enables (the French) not to react allergically to anything that’s said about them.” Mr Lange said it was important for France and New Zealand to begin patching up their relations, He said he would be prepared to meet. President Mitterrand and hoped that political exchanges at a high level could soon be arranged. , He suggested the two countries should! stop, the war of words before the trial of two French agents held in New Zeal and jails on arson and murder charges.

Depositions hearings against Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafairt, officers of the French external security agency, will start in Auckland on N ovember 4.