‘Few French query action’

Press, 27 January 1986, Page 8

‘Few French query action’

Too many French people believe their Government has an unquestionable right to ride roughshod over South Pacific countries, including New Zealand, says a French academic. “There is a determination to let the State have the last word out of principle. Dominance by the State as a paramount power is not questioned by the majority of French people,” Professor Jean Chesneaux said on arrival in Christchurch last evening.

Professor Chesneaux, aged 63, who is a fierce promoter of an independent and nuclear-free Pacific, is in New Zealand for a three-week speaking tour.

“I can understand why it is difficult for New Zealanders to understand this French obstinate determination to stick to policies in a very rigid way. France’s political culture and its political style is very peculiar, almost unique. “Many Frenchmen are convinced it’s the duty of France to maintain its political control on several Pacific countries to prevent New Zealand and Australia from developing their alleged tendency to consider the South Pacific as their own private sphere of influence,” he said.

New Zealand was regarded as an interferer and a troublemaker. Hence, there had been no

outrage in France at its Government’s involvement in the Rainbow Warrior bombing. The French news media had treated it as bad luck that two agents, Alain Marfart and Dominique Prieur, had been caught.

“If circumstances had led New Zealand agents, for argument’s sake, to behave in France the way French agents have here, it’s hard to imagine the uproar, the outcry, the state of hysteria one would have witnessed,” Professor Chesneaux said.

“I am impressed by the self-control of the New Zealand people in the circumstances.”

Although he was one of a small minority of French people prepared

to express opposition to their Government’s continued presence and its nuclear programme in the Pacific, that was gradually changing. A poll conducted in October showed 32 per cent opposed underground nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll.

A further 41 per cent said they were generally in favour of Greenpeace, and 19 per cent thought Greenpeace vessels should be allowed to cruise unhindered in the waters off Mururoa.

Professor Chesneaux will speak on “France in the Pacific” at a public meeting at the Friends Meeting House, Manchester Street, tomorrow at 8 p.m.