PARIS: France will not restart its nuclear testing program as long as the United States, Russia and Britain respect a moratorium currently in place, President Francois Mitterrand announced recently. “If someone else starts, we won ‘tallow ourselves to be outdistanced,” Mitterrand said during a 90minute television interview. The recent underground nuclear test carried out by China raised questions about whether the other nuclear powers should continue to respect the moraionum, first announced by France in April 1992. Both Washington and Paris ordered pre~ paredness cheeks at nuclear facilities in the events that tests are restarted. Mitterrand’s remarks were the first to clearly define the French stance, The President said that China was not at the technological level of the West or Russia, so did not represent a to France’s nuclear capacity.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 12, 1993
