N.Z. reaction to bombing low-key — Frenchman

Press, 28 January 1986, Page 31

N.Z. reaction to bombing low-key — Frenchman

PA Dunedin A French academic visiting New Zealand, Professor Jean Chesneaux, says he is "astonished” by the moderate reaction to the Rainbow Warrior bombing and cover-up.

If New Zealand agents had carried on in France in similar fashion there would have been an outcry and complete uproar against anything Kiwi, he said. Professor Chesneaux, emeritus professor of Asian history at the, Sorbonne in Paris, is on a speaking tour of New Zealand.

He is a co-organiser of the Collective Against French Nuclear Tests in the Pacific and chairman of the Kanak Support and Information Society.

Professor Chesneaux says he is pleased New Zealanders have avoided hysterical reactions, because condemnation of France should be principled and should not arise from French-bashing paranoia. While New Zealand was small, it did have the strength of a strong moral position which should extend against other forms of nuclear militarism in the Pacific, he said.

Professor Chesneaux called for a Pacificcentred approach based on the collective interests of the region.

He has written books on modern China and Vietnam. He was brought to New Zealand by the Universities Vice-chancellors’ Joint Committee in 1977 as a French National Fellow.