Imperialist contempt

There is ample time and good reason for France's new president, Jacques Chirac, to reconsider his reckless decision to resume nuclear tests under a coral atoll in the Pacific come September.

Paris invokes the familiar explanation that it needs to conduct a limited number of low-yield underground tests to insure the reliability of its stockpile. But scientists do not agree that testing is necessary for these purposes and a majority of French public opinion opposes renewed tests.

Given the initial reaction to Chirac's announcement, the tests appear more likely to damage French national interests than advance them. They are certain to damage global efforts to lessen the dangers of a nuclear-armed world.

Just announcing the tests has poisoned French relations with Australia, New Zealand, and nearby Southeast Asian countries. These countries rightly view testing at a site so far from France and near to them as a form of imperialist contempt. They also fear damage to fragile South Pacific environments. Chirac might consider whether France has a greater interest in maintaining good relations with the currently booming Asia-Pacific region or flaunting nuclear weapons for which it no longer has any obvious use.

Of broader concern, France's move comes at a sensitive moment in negotiations for a global test ban agreement. Two months ago, the five official nuclear weapons states got the rest of the world to agree to extend their nuclear monopoly indefinitely. In turn, the nuclear five -- the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China -- committed themselves to sign a comprehensive test ban by next year. But with China never having suspended testing and France now ready to end its three-year halt, Russian, British, and American generals are dusting off their own arguments for "safety and reliability" tests. If the drive for an early comprehensive test ban falters, the moral and political pressure on nuclear aspirants like Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea to drop their efforts would be significantly reduced.

Chirac is said to have been motivated by a desire to emulate his political idol, Charles DeGaulle, who launched the idea of an independent French nuclear force. But that was in the 1960s, when France was seeking to reassert itself after the loss of its colonial empire. DeGaulle's idea was to establish an independent bargaining position for France in the Cold War, standing between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Whatever logic there was to such a policy 30 years ago, there is none today. The nuclear standoff between Washington and Moscow is over. Paris has found its destiny in the European Union, whose plans for a common defense policy make the idea of an independent French nuclear force anachronistic. Chirac can show courage and statesmanship by canceling the tests.

-- The New York Times