Francois Bruntz wrote:
> I understand that you were not very happy with our nuclear tests...
> There only one thing that I must say : when the United States did HUNDREDS of
> tests, noone
> said that it was a "scandale"! It's not fair! Great Britain and Japan made some
> tests too...
In Australia, we were silly/ignorant enough to actually have nuclear
tests on our own soil in the 1950s. British ones. In the 1960s and 1970s
we found out just how difficult it is to clean up Atmospheric test
debris. Maralinga (one of the test sites) is still contaminated. So we
object to them anywhere in our neighbourhood.
BTW Japan has never had any atomic tests as such! Unless you count
Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
You are right saying it is Not Fair. And if France had conducted the
"safe" tests in, say the Plateau D'Albion in the Massif Central, we
would not have objected to them (though I think Belgique, Luxembourg,
l'Allemande etc may have!)
> Chirac's choice was very hard : on one side nuclear tests were not a very good
> idea in terms of ecology
D'accord :)
> but on the
> other side it was our defence that was in the balance...
> But once again I understand very well that Australia did not like these tests.
> I'm sorry for the troubles...
You have nothing to apologise for. I refuse to be held responsible for
the idiocies the Australian government sometimes commits. I see no
reason why you should be held responsible for your government's
occassional stupidities.
> I agree that l'Affaire Greenpeace was a great stupidity of our services...
D'accord once more. But the French government is not alone in doing
silly things. It's just that this one was more silly than most.
> Why do you speak about war? I hope that there will never be a war between France
> and Australia,
> you're are one of our allies, aren't you?
We thought so too. Until a French military team blew up a ship and
murdered someone in Auckland. Francois, supposing a New Zealand commando
team had blown up a French ship in LeHavre carrying a bomb to Mororua
and been caught?
--
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Received on Sat May 24 1997 - 21:06:07 UTC
