Greenpeace Joins Anti-Nuke Protest In Tahiti

French officials denied anti-nuclear protesters were hiding at Mururoa Atoll, but planes and boats were searching the nuclear test site where a Greenpeace boat was turned back last week.

“This is hype,” Gen. Michel Boileau said as the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior II arrived Friday in Tahiti, 650 miles from Mururoa, to a greeting by thousands of Tahitian supporters.

President Jacques Chirac announced last month that France will set off eight nuclear test blasts at Mururoa beginning in September. Chirac reiterated that plan Friday, saying it was “irrevocable.”

On Saturday, about 500 German and other scientists published an appeal to Chirac to stop the tests. They said they were “horrified and dejected” by the plans, which “mirror the behavior of the Cold War period.”

Greenpeace claims one of its founding members, David McTaggart, and two others reached Mururoa aboard a rubber raft July 9.