TROUBLE IN PARADISE

By THOMAS SANCTON/PARIS

The blast was over in a nanosecond, causing no more visible effects than the momentary frothing and churning of the turquoise waters around Mururoa atoll. But the political aftershocks from France's decision to test a small nuclear device in the South Pacific last Tuesday continued to reverberate around the world long after the waves had calmed.

In Berlin 12,000 angry youths threw eggs and tomatoes at a French cultural center. In Chile 10,000 protesters formed a human chain in a Santiago park. Thousands took to the streets in Sydney and Tokyo, while demonstrators in Manila burned a French flag. Japan's Finance Minister Masayoshi Takemura called the French action "crazy." Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating branded it "an act of stupidity." Chile and New Zealand recalled their ambassadors. The tiny Pacific island nations of Tuvalu, Nauru and Kiribati broke off relations with Paris. Washington showed more restraint, expressing "regrets," while Bonn and London refrained from outright criticism.

But nowhere was the reaction more dramatic than in Papeete, Tahiti, the capital of French Polynesia, where several hundred rioters went on a rampage. In a 36-hour orgy of trashing and looting, they virtually destroyed Tahiti's international airport, smashed storefront windows and torched several buildings before French Foreign Legionnaires and paramilitary troops arrived. The upheaval, which injured 40 people and did damage estimated in the millions of dollars, was attributed to a volatile mixture of antinuclear and pro-independence sentiments.

The chain reaction of rage and indignation followed months of mounting protest. Ever since newly elected President Jacques Chirac announced on June 13 that his government would interrupt a three-year moratorium and carry out a "final" series of up to eight tests between September and May, France had found itself the target of widespread international criticism, consumer boycotts and formal protests from more than 20 governments. Chirac's "irrevocable" decision has been opposed even by some 60% of the French public, and his standing in the polls slid to a low point of 36%, largely because of the testing issue.

In the South Pacific, the controversy took on the trappings of a naval battle as the militant environmental organization Greenpeace and a 25-boat "peace flotilla" approached the Mururoa test site. Four days before the blast, after Greenpeace penetrated a 12-mile security zone, black-suited French navy commandos boarded and commandeered the two lead vessels, signaling Paris' determination to go ahead with the tests--despite the inevitable global backlash.

Chirac, whose decision was accompanied by a pledge to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that is due to be completed late next year, justified his decision to resume testing entirely on technical and scientific grounds. His predecessor Francois Mitterrand, he explained, had interrupted a critical series of tests "a little too early" by declaring a moratorium in April 1992. In order to ensure the reliability of its nuclear deterrent, said Chirac, France had no choice but to complete its "experimental program."

That analysis was based largely on the technical recommendations of French nuclear experts for whom Gaullist symbolism counts far less than the behavior of sub-atomic particles. For them, the challenge is to keep France's nuclear force credible beyond the year 2015 or so, when the present generation of warheads will have aged into obsolescence. In addition, say French officials, the objective is to gather the data necessary to perfect the simulation and computer-modeling techniques that will permit French nuclear scientists to forgo live tests in the future and sign the CTBT.

Many analysts, however, took a more cynical view of Chirac's motivations. Recalling that it was Charles de Gaulle who had first engendered France's force de frappe in the '60s, they accused Chirac of trying to prove his Gaullist credentials and burnish his presidential stature by reaffirming France's status as a nuclear power. "He thought he could prove to the French and the world that because of his decision France was back, and he was an authentic President," wrote Serge July, influential editor of the left-leaning daily Liberation. "Instead the world and the French have witnessed the planetary blunder of a President out of step with the [post-cold war] era."

Critics also challenged the French decision on technical grounds, questioning whether this series of tests would mark a fundamental advance in simulation technology. "A few more tests won't really make much difference in their program," says a U.S. State Department expert. "They can improve it, but they won't perfect it." Pascal Boniface, director of the Paris-based Institute for International and Strategic Relations, agrees: "These tests are not going to perfect simulation techniques right away." Other skeptics were quick to point out that live tests were in any case unnecessary for the development of simulation techniques, since the French could acquire the technology they need from the U.S., which is far ahead in this field and already cooperates with the French on certain aspects of simulation.

Although the U.S. is willing to offer more help, the French have declined. "This is a question of national independence," explains Marc Launois, deputy director of military applications for France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), the agency that manufactures and tests nuclear weapons for the government. A defense expert and former presidential aide says, "We want to protect our own concept of arms building. If we cooperate fully with the Americans, how could we protect our secrets?" The implication is that in the future, if not now, France could be tempted to develop new types of weapons on its own.

But if their justifications for the tests are not entirely convincing, French scientists--and others--have largely refuted the notion that the underground experiments pose any immediate environmental threat. Since 1982 at least five expert studies--including one by antinuclear marine biologist Jacques Cousteau and one by the International Atomic Energy Agency-- concluded that France's Pacific tests at Mururoa and nearby Fangataufa atoll, conducted from 1966 to 1992, had caused no radioactive contamination and no significant ecological impact.

To many critics the real danger of the French tests lies not in their threat to the environment but in the dangerous message they send to would-be proliferators. "Now go explain to countries like India that they shouldn't imitate us," says French astrophysicist Hubert Reeves. "These tests sabotage the fragile confidence among nations and threaten the success of the 1996 international [test-ban] treaty. The military is one war behind the times. They haven't understood that the Berlin Wall has fallen!" Jacques Attali, a former top adviser to Mitterrand, agrees and predicts that "if the CTBT talks fail, people will now say it's the fault of the French."

Seemingly unshaken by the wave of indignation, Chirac denounced the protests as "hysterical" and insisted that "France will be absolutely firm" in completing its test program. "There are times," said Prime Minister Alain Juppe, "when the grandeur of a statesman is to confront a passing unpopularity in order to preserve, in the medium and long term, the essential interests of the country." Far from retreating, the President appeared ready to fight back, canceling a planned state visit to Japan and disinviting Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson to Paris after the Japanese Finance Minister and Swedish Culture Minister joined an anti-French protest march in Tahiti.

Such feistiness is fully in character for the man whom former President Georges Pompidou once dubbed le bulldozer. For whatever reasons, Jacques Chirac has made an "irrevocable" decision, and nothing will make him back down now. He may reduce the number of tests; he may try to get them over as soon as possible; but he won't cancel them. And he may just come out stronger for it--at least at home.

--With reporting by Al Prince/Papeete, Simon Robinson/ Auckland, Bruce van Voorst/Bonn, and Douglas Waller/Washington

With reporting by AL PRINCE/PAPEETE, SIMON ROBINSON/AUCKLAND, BRUCE VAN VOORST/BONN, AND DOUGLAS WALLER/WASHINGTON