Stop nuclear tests now!
By Sam Stratham and Wendy Robertson PARIS — Opposition to France's program of nuclear testing continues throughout the world. This opposition has been boosted with the detonation of a weapon on Fangataufu atoll on October 2 AEST. Revealing the contempt the French government holds for the peoples of the Pacific, the latest blast was five times larger than the September 6 blast beneath Moruroa. Anti-nuclear sentiment continues to grow in France, as the turnout for demonstrations showed here on September 30. At least 60,000 people demonstrated across the country in a second national day of action against nuclear weapons. Ten thousand rallied in Paris, and demonstrations were organised in 60 provincial towns. The protests marked a significant increase in opposition compared to the day after the first test, when 10,000 people rallied nationally. Latest opinion polls indicate that 60-71% of the French population are opposed to the resumption of nuclear testing although not necessarily opposed to nuclear weapons. President Chirac's approval rating has slumped from 58% to 32% since his election earlier this year. The September 30 protests were organised by Assez d'essais (Enough Tests), a coalition of 145 left, student, trade union and environmental organisations. Assez d'essais is unique in France in uniting most of the major organisations of the left and environmental campaigns. This was the third round of demonstrations organised by the coalition since the resumption of testing. The forces inside the coalition range from the centre to the revolutionary left. The Socialist Party, the largest and most conservative of all left forces, demands computer simulations rather than underground tests, and does not oppose nuclear weapons. The Communist Party is against the tests, but not civilian or military nuclear power (84% of France's electricity is nuclear generated). The Greens and the Ecologists are against nuclear power in all forms. The anarchist groups, numerous but poorly organised, are against all nuclear power from the perspective of its use as a weapon of imperialism. The well-organised Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), affiliated to the Trotskyist Fourth International, and the Revolutionary Communist Youth (JCR) oppose all stages of the nuclear cycle, demand a complete stop to tests, denounce French colonialism and are in solidarity with the movement for self-determination in Tahiti and Kanaky. People marched in many contingents, holding banners and placards, with trucks carrying live jazz and funk bands and broadcasting chants through loudspeakers. Greenpeace organised hundreds of people into street theatre of walking bombs and people wrapped in long strips of coloured material making a rainbow. There were also contingents of high school and university student unions, peace committees, left parties and youth groups. The LCR/JCR had the largest contingent in the September 30 Paris march, with about 1000 activists and supporters including from other parts of Europe. The organised left accounted for about a third of all participants, with large contingents also coming from the Communist Party, the Young Socialists (youth group of the Socialist Party) and the International Socialists. A contingent of Kanak students represented the struggle of the people of France's colonies in the Pacific. The Association des Etudiants et Stagiaires Kanaks (Association of Kanak students studying in France) demanded an end to tests and independence for Kanaky and Tahiti. There were also contingents from peace and green groups from across Europe. The real success of the campaign is its ability to mobilise young people, especially high school students. In the Paris demonstration, young people made up the bulk of the participants. In the week before the march, in Perpignan, a town in the south of France, a group of high school students organised a demonstration of 700, a significant demonstration in a small town. The Young Communists are building a campaign around the theme "Chirac, test schools, not nuclear weapons", saying that the money wasted on nuclear weapons testing should go to high school funding. Three hundred thousand people have already signed the national petition around this issue.
What next?
Green Left Weekly spoke to Jean Luc Thierry, Greenpeace's anti-nuclear campaigner in France, who recently returned from Papeete. The establishment media in France have been running a campaign to discredit Greenpeace, claiming that it is an undemocratic and bureaucratic organisation, which is acting alone in its campaign against the tests. In response to these attacks, Thierry maintained that it was important for Greenpeace to build a strong profile, but not to act alone in the campaign. He said that it was necessary to develop links with other organisations. Greenpeace believes that the campaign in France is important to maintain the majority opposition to the tests. "The campaign is also important to take people forward to develop opposition to the logic of 'deterrence'. Developing more bombs in reality is not deterrence, but the preparation of war." Commenting on the movement in Tahiti, he said, "It is impossible to separate the issues of independence and opposition to nuclear tests. I estimate that 85% of the participants in the movement against the tests in Papeete are also for independence. The only reason Tahiti has not been granted independence is because it is a test site." Mattieu Vieillefond, a member of the JCR, said it is important that the campaign include education about all of the different aspects of the nuclear question: ecology, anti-militarism and anti-colonialism. "Because the French media are trying to separate the question of tests and independence, it is our duty to stress the links between all of the issues". Pierre Rousset, the editor of the LCR's newspaper
Rouge, said, "We propose two things. Firstly, to maintain the pressure on each of the tests because each significantly increases the damage to the reef, as well as the radiation experienced by the people of the region. For these reasons the campaign must continue to try to reduce the number of tests. "Secondly, the campaign must link up with other campaigns at the G7 summit, where four out of the five nuclear powers will be present.
This summit will be a focus for many other protest movements." Rousset also believes that it is important to strengthen solidarity with Polynesia. In the coming weeks, there will be a general strike of all of the public service unions in defence of wages and against the impending privatisation of many of the public services in France. It is important for the anti-nuclear campaign to campaign for an end to nuclear expenditure as a means to fund public services.
Increased repression
In Tahiti the October 2 test blast was preceded by an increase in repression and intimidation. The number of French riot troops was tripled by the arrival of 800 additional gendarmes from France. High-profile patrols of heavily armed troops in open-backed trucks and armoured vehicles became a common sight in the streets of Papeete and the working-class district of Faaa. Just hours before the test, French commandos seized Greenpeace's last remaining ship in the area, the
Manutea, in international waters. Stanley Cross, a lawyer from the pro-independence party Tavini Huiraatira, estimates that as many as 230 people are in jail following the unrest that rocked Tahiti after the first test. "Perhaps this is one of the more certain ways for the French government to stop protests after the next test. It's what we call repression", Cross told the Reuters wire service on October 1. Five senior leaders of the A Tia I Mua trade union federation remain in detention. The Hawaii-based Coalition Against Nuclear Testing and Amnesty International say that the leaders, including general secretary Hirohiti Tefaarere, have been subjected to electric shock torture. Activists from Tahiti's NGO umbrella group Hiti Tau and Tavini Huiraatira defied the French intimidation and marched through Papeete on October 5 (Tahiti time) wearing black armbands, white gags across their mouths and chains on their feet to highlight how French colonialism continues to deny Polynesians their rights. Leaders of Tahiti's majority Evangelical Church described the blast, which was on a Sunday in Tahiti, as an insult to the beliefs of Tahitians. A range of opposition parties is campaigning to force the pro-French Territorial Assembly to debate the nuclear tests. Greenpeace called on governments in the Pacific to cut diplomatic ties with Paris as a way of increasing pressure.
Europe
In Spain on October 1, 10,000 people demonstrated against French nuclear testing in Barcelona. Greenpeace and peace groups held demonstrations in front of the French embassy in Madrid and the French consulate in Barcelona on October 2. A national demonstration is scheduled for October 8. In Switzerland on October 2, peace and environmental groups rallied near the French consulates in Basel, Zurich, Luzern and Lausanne. On October 5, the Green Party and Greenpeace held a demonstration in Saint Gallen, and on October 7, a national demonstration in Bern involved several thousand people. In Austria, hundreds of members of peace and environmental groups rallied outside the French embassy in Vienna on October 2. The demonstrators used sirens and whistles to protest against the fact that Chirac is turning a deaf ear to international protests against French nuclear testing. Spray artists used a billboard to paint their protest while another billboard displayed President Chirac's face with the slogan "The nuclear threat has a name — Chirac". Protests from governments around the world have been largely confined to the symbolic and diplomatic. The strongest action came from the 16-nation South Pacific Forum, which announced that France would no longer be permitted to participate in the annual post-forum dialogue meeting. Another meeting of the forum is not due for over 11 months, well after the end of the test program. Both the Australian and New Zealand governments ruled out cutting diplomatic ties. France's second test has been condemned by almost every European government except Germany and Britain. Japan, the US and Russia expressed "regret". Foreign minister Gareth Evans said he would lobby for a United Nations resolution calling for the end of nuclear testing. However, the resolution, which will not be voted on before the end on November, will not refer directly to either France or China.