THE PRESS TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 1986. France’s dilemma

Press, 14 January 1986, Page 20

THE PRESS TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 1986. France’s dilemma

Spare a thought for the poor French Government. It has got this country, New Zealand, to deal with over two French spies who were caught on a mission of sabotage of an environmental group’s ship. The ship was blown up, a man killed, and many more people joined the Greenpeace organisation, which owned the vessel. However, that is not the problem that a writer, Jacques Amalric, tackles in a recent article in “Le Monde,” which is included in the “Guardian Weekly.” The problem is rather that the French have surveyed the levers they have — the Amalric article uses the word “weapons,” but comfortingly puts it in quotation marks — to persuade New Zealand, to deport Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur back to France. Amalric apparently has been talking in “high Government quarters” and a range of options in dealing with New Zealand has been considered. The first option considered was open trade pressure — a “lamb for spies” deal. The trouble with this is that France does not call the tune completely in the institutions of the European Economic Community and France is getting little sympathy from the rest of the Community over sending the spies to New Zealand in the first place. A move to keep New Zealand products out of the Community would also complicate relations with Britain even further, and these are complicated enough as they are. So the thought of general sanctions had to be abandoned. Selective sanctions were then considered. One suggestion was to impose a ban on New Zealand exports to France’s Pacific territories. Technical difficulties stood in the way of that: the French importers who take food and other farm products also take Australian products and the question arose about how to distinguish between the exports of the two countries. A further question arose about how Australia would react to such a measure. The French apparently see no particular advantage in getting everyone off side. Another suggestion was an appeal to French citizens to boycott New Zealand goods; but this course was rejected because it was thought that Mr Lange

was not going to be persuaded to let the spies go home because of that and, besides, the New Zealand public might become difficult. Deprived of “weapons” within their own reach, the French toyed with the idea of getting help from another country. They thought of the Americans first, but remembered that New Zealand and the United States were having some sort of dispute about the entry of nuclear ships to New Zealand ports and that it might be better to choose someone else. So they turned eyes to the other side of the Channel. Early on in the Rainbow Warrior affair, the French had tried to blame the whole thing on the British secret service and Britain apparently has not forgotten or forgiven. Besides that, France recently voted in the United Nations in support of Argentina’s request to open negotiations over the Falklands. Thus it would seem that the time to ask Britain to use its good offices with New Zealand is not propitious. France has come to a conclusion that discreet negotiations might be better. One of the fears is that this would not mean using the “weapon” of reducing New Zealand exports to the Community, but of increasing them. Amalric deals with the politics of France well, but is on shakier ground in dealing with the politics of New Zealand. The New Zealand Government would find it difficult to bow to trade pressure from France on the issue and would not want to be seen as accepting greater access to the E.E.C. in return for deporting the spies. Amalric thinks that the main puzzle is whether Mr Lange is determined to hang on to Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur until after March to make sure that their imprisonment is an issue in the Parliamentary elections in France. This would seem a notably self-centred view of the world as revolving on the French elections. Mr Lange has already answered Amalric’s puzzle. What Mr Lange does not want are pictures of Mafart and Prieur sunning themselves in the South of France when Mr Lange faces an election himself next year. He is not so much sparing a thought for the French Parliamentary elections as for his own.