950808

France plays down NZ

court bid on

nuclear testing

PARIS: France, playing down Wellington's World Court bid to stop it testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific, said on Tuesday the move could be an effort to boost New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger's election prospects.

European Affairs Minister Michel Barnier appeared unimpressed by the move, announced by Bolger after talks with leaders of opposition parties.

"This is not really a new decision," Barnier, a former environment minister, told RTL radio.

"I think one must take into account internal policy motives for the agitation of this or that government," he said. Bolger faces a tough challenge in a general election next year.

Bolger said on Tuesday he would try to revive a 1973 legal challenge in the International Court of Justice in a bid to stop nuclear tests planned from next month in French Polynesia.

The prime minister added that his legal advisers say the chances of reviving a 22-year-old case are slim and failure could strengthen France's hand.

New Zealand was one of several parties to the original 1973 case over French nuclear tests, which at that time were being conducted atmospherically but are now staged underground. France withdrew its recognition of the World Court in 1974.

New Zealand and Australia have led a chorus of international condemnation of President Jacques Chirac's decision to resume tests, ending a moratorium announced by his predecessor Francois Mitterrand in 1992.

There has been speculation that France could bring forward the tests, planned from September, in order to stem the protests.

But in Papeete, the president of French Polynesia Gaston Flosse said no test would take place during the South Pacific Games planned from August 12-26 in Tahiti.-Reuter