Publication Laka-library:
France: the nuclear renegade
| Author | Australian Democrats |
| Date | December 1987 |
| Classification | 2.02.0.00/27 (FRANCE - GENERAL) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
Background and Acknowledgements The most controversial political decision taken in Australia in 1986 was the resumption of uranium sales to France by the Federal Labor Government, led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke. In 1984, the Hawke Government had suspended an existing export contract in protest at France's continuing program of nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific. The decision to resume sales was an economic one; the Australian Government expects to win a 25% share of the large French uranium market in the 1990's. The Government tried to assure the Australian public that the exports would not contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Surveys have shown that most Australians mistrust these assurances, but the tyranny of distance and French and Australian secrecy has prevented a full debate on the 1986 decision. Official information in Australia on the French nuclear industry is scarce and fragmented. This report is an attempt to fill that void. In February 1987 we wrote to organisations and researchers in France, the United States, West Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands seeking information about the military and civilian nuclear industry in France - its security, environmental, economic and nuclear weapons proliferation implications. We also wrote to a member of the European Parliament, the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the French Ambassador to Australia. We received a large amount of valuable material in response. Some of it came from official sources, such as the IAEA, the French CEA (Atomic Energy Commission), the British, West German and Dutch Parliaments. The majority came in the form of research documents compiled from the public record in Europe and North America. In particular we are indebted to: Les Amis de la Terre; Centre de Documentation et de Recherche sur la Paix et les Conflits; Friends of the Earth Ltd (London); John Hallam, Friends of the Earth (Sydney); Greenpeace International; Info-Uranium; Division of Public Information, International Atomic Energy Agency; Janet Kenny; Paul Leventhal, Director of the Nuclear Control Institute (US); Legislative Research Service, Parliamentary Library (Canberra); Olivier Maurel; Dr Dorothee Piermont (Die Grunen), Member of the European Parliament; Leonard Spector, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (US); and the World Information Service on Energy (WISE) in Paris, Amsterdam and Glen Aplin (Australia). This document does of course not represent the views of those who contributed source material. It should be noted that the French Ambassador to Australia did not respond to our request for information.
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