'Maginot Line' mentality
YOUR editorial 'French living in the past' (July 11), clearly expressed the stance of most right-thinking persons towards President Jacques Chirac's pro-nuclear weapons folly.
Unfortunately, there are still many Frenchmen who have a 'Maginot Line' and Napoleonic concept of history - a blinkered view of France as threatened by hostile nations which must be intimidated by France's military powers.
President Chirac's kow-towing to his nuclear cabal is a dangerous and foolish decision. It will be used by other nuclear states as an excuse to resume testing of their own 'more reliable' weapons. It is especially ironic and symbolic of French insensitivity that this policy was announced during the 50th year after the atomic annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One would expect Frenchmen to be more astute and aware of Asian people's feelings about nuclear weapons and nuclear fallout. If Mr Chirac is so confident in the safety of the tests, there are many areas in France that could accommodate eight holes and eight nuclear blasts. What is he afraid of? I now call upon the French Consul-General, Mr Laurent Aublin, to resign his post in Hong Kong in protest against his superior's insulting and aggressive decision. To help him make a firm statement, I recommend the following actions by Hong Kong people: No purchases of French products, especially brandy and other luxury goods.
No tourism to France until the tests are cancelled.
No flights on Air France.
No visits to Hong Kong by any French warship. All French military personnel to be shunned.
If we in Hong Kong can act decisively, I'm sure it will have a strong impact on the nuclear bureaucrats hiding behind the 'neo-Maginot Line' in St Cyr Academy and the Quai D'Orsay.
J. GARNER Kowloon AS one of the many people demonstrating against the French Government's decision to resume nuclear testing in the Pacific I was most disturbed to see that the event was being video-taped by a member of the Hong Kong police. I am sure I was not the only demonstrator present who found this action threatening and provocative.
The Commissioner of Police owes an explanation to all those of us exercising our democratic right of peaceful protest as to why it was considered necessary to take such a record, to what use that record will be put and for how long it will be kept.
I feel that this sort of action on the part of the police, whose duties at a demonstration should be merely to keep order, sets a dangerous precedent for the way in which similar demonstrations may be handled in the future.
JILL TAYLOR Ap Lei Chau
