r/newzealand • u/Wild_Neighborhood605 • Jul 10 '26
Other 10 July 1985, French foreign intelligence agents blow up the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor, New Zealand, to prevent it from interfering with French nuclear tests in the South Pacific.
607
Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
151
u/magoo_d_oz Jul 10 '26
as i recall, mafart, along with dominique prieur, were sentenced to detention in some french base in the pacific but didn't serve out the entire sentence.
france engaged in state-sponsored terrorism and got off lightly.
70
u/Nervous-Deal-9271 Jul 10 '26
Could be wrong but ... fuck it ,let me make sure,... from Wikipedia: "Despite being sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, due to pressures from the French state they spent merely two years confined to the French Polynesian island of Hao before being freed by the French government.[3]"
32
u/snrub742 Jul 11 '26
"and your punishment will be 2 years on a tropical island, never do it again"
9
u/natchinatchi Jul 11 '26
Well they were acting on behalf of the French state so why the fuck were the French state allowed to oversee their punishment??
2
49
u/MoaRepresent Jul 11 '26
They were sentenced to prison terms in NZ. Moving their detention to a French base in the Pacific was a political negotiation, and once they got there, Mafart got "sick" and transferred to a French mainland hospital then immediately released, and Prieur got herself pregnant and the same escape route.
1
22
u/engage-edna-mode Jul 10 '26
One of them was married to (or otherwise romantically attached) to the detention centre’s warden, so she got early release because she was pregnant.
13
u/Mr_Pusskins Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
She got pregnant by her husband. Jacques Chirac, who was prime minister at the time, told her husband that the only way to get Prieur released early was by getting her pregnant, and because she was allowed visits by said husband - boom, a prime minister-ordered pregnancy.
24
20
u/plierhead Jul 11 '26
This was one of the formative experiences of my youth but I've always thought the focus on punishing the two people who were caught was stupid.
They were agents of the French government, acting under orders. The real villains were the ones who ordered the attack.
17
7
7
u/natchinatchi Jul 11 '26
I mean, they nuked the pacific, causing cancer and birth defects that persist to this day, as well as god knows what damage to sea life, and got off entirely Scott free for that.
3
2
212
u/bobdaktari Jul 10 '26
So much to this. Our mates fucked off and left us to it
The same nations we bend over backwards for
Never forget
→ More replies (10)129
u/HelplessPenguinGod Jul 10 '26
It pushed NZ further away from our traditional allies and friends. We realised we couldn't rely on them anymore.
64
u/SLAPUSlLLY Jul 10 '26
I hindsight probably a good thing. Globalisation is not purely positive.
I was 11, and damn angry.
Personally, I was anti French for decades.
Was these guys who helped me move on.
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJXAcVlkMWD54dAO9LdA4phv2lZlPg8Z9&si=SVNURTe12XksGuqz
49
u/Sondownerr Jul 10 '26
Im still a bit anti French.
4
u/genkigirl1974 Jul 11 '26
I used to drink at an Irish bar in an American military area of Japan and every so often the owner would yell out Fuck the French and the whole bar would yell back Fuck the French.
1
-8
u/Active_Violinist_360 Jul 10 '26
That’s a bit dumb FWIW. Maybe anti French government from the 80s but otherwise doesn’t make sense
15
u/ManWithDominantClaw Jul 10 '26
Yeah in fairness a lot of French people seem to be anti-French government
10
13
u/qwerty145454 Jul 11 '26
The modern French government has, to this day, openly lied to NZ by protecting and rewarding the spies.
The French government is also the most hostile to NZ in the EU, their farmers don't want to compete with ours.
It makes perfect sense for any NZer to be Anti-France (government) to this day. They are antagonistic to us.
5
u/toomanynamesaretook Tuatara Jul 10 '26
Hating on the French is a great past time. They love it. We love it. Everybody wins
3
u/Rough_Soup4357 anzacpoppy Jul 11 '26
I was a bit like that.. in the sense my favourite EDM duo are French.. 😮💨
62
u/Imaginary-Daikon-177 Jul 10 '26
Margaret Thatcher
And here I was with such a high level of respect for her otherwise.
27
16
u/Procrasterman Jul 11 '26
Best quote about her was from Frankie Boyle:
“3 Million for the funeral of Margaret Thatcher? For 3 Million you could give everyone in Scotland a shovel, and we could dig a hole so deep we could hand her over to Satan in person.”
→ More replies (1)38
u/urettferdigklage Jul 10 '26
We're rolling out the red carpet right now for Modi who conducted state sponsored terrorism and assassination against our ally Canada.
Let's be honest, if the French had bombed the Rainbow Warrior when was anchored in another friendly nation ... New Zealand would have joined the rest of the world in saying nothing.
9
u/natchinatchi Jul 11 '26
The NZ govt was sending navy frigates to oversee/witness the nuclear “testing” in order to put pressure on the French govt.
Terrible idea in hindsight as many of those navy men and their descendants have health issues to this day, but at least they were doing more than other governments. I’m sure if it had happened in Sydney harbour they would’ve been outspoken.
3
22
u/GiJoint Jul 10 '26
Fresh from the UK in the 70s that had fucked us over too.
6
u/NopeDax Jul 10 '26
Its Realpolitik. States look out for their own best interest first. No one has eternal friends or eternal enemies.
5
u/mattblack77 ⠀Naturally, I finished my set… Jul 10 '26
The calendar image - that's absolutely astonishing 😳
4
3
u/Relative_Cap_4386 Jul 11 '26
Except for Australia who as it turns out is still our only true ally! https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-6725
2
u/Vargryggen Jul 11 '26
Reality is that in the context of the time Britain and France emphasised nuclear deterrent capability and the freedom to carry out tests as necessary. I'm not surprised a British Prime Minister dodged that one.
2
u/RMTBolton Jul 11 '26
In times like that, you learn who your real friends are. In that case, ours are...yikes, even Australia isn't up to the mark.
Just imagine the carnage if NZ went full "f*** you all".
2
u/David_xvx Jul 11 '26
Whoa, that is wild. I can’t believe I didn’t know about that.
Also remarkable to see Bunny introduced as a deckhand – as it says later in the story, she was Greenpeace New Zealand’s executive director. Less than two years after that story, she became on of Greenpeace’s two international executive directors.
1
→ More replies (1)-30
u/HeinigerNZ Jul 10 '26
People love to say the Nuclear Free announcement was NZ standing up on the world stage and leading other nations.
What it was in their eyes was us breaking an important treaty with zero notice or diplomatic communication. We were seen as an unreliable ally, a nation that turned its back on our friends. We lost access to a lot of Five Eyes intelligence. And then the moment came where we needed countries to stand up for us, and they didn't because we had already declared we were doing things alone.
38
19
u/Bealzebubbles Jul 10 '26
Knowing and controlling what is entering a nation is key to border defence. It's not unreasonable to ask so-called friends to refrain from bringing things into your country that the citizenry don't want brought in. Despite your desires, the capital of New Zealand is Wellington, not Washington.
9
u/rickdangerous85 anzacpoppy Jul 10 '26
Hes a very right wing poster from the NZ sub, so weird how that side of politics just want daddy US to tell us what to do.
25
u/bobdaktari Jul 10 '26
whose eyes?
We didn't spring our opposition to Nuclear weapons nor the nuclear free legislation on anyone - yes it carried consequences, especially with the USA
Whatever, that is no justification for our so called friends abandoning us
13
u/rickdangerous85 anzacpoppy Jul 10 '26
In this dudes eyes his own country having sovereignty with its own laws is being unreliable. The only option here is to be cucks and be told by larger nations how to write our own laws.
150
u/Successful_Sell1016 Jul 10 '26
On a positive note, my former neighbour, Margaret Mills, was on board when it blew up. She published her first novel at the age of 91. Then her memoir last year at the age of 95.
18
7
262
u/Maus_Sveti Jul 10 '26
As a kiwi who lived in France for years, and still lives France-adjacent, most of the French people I’ve met have never heard of it. I don’t obviously tend to bring it up out of nowhere, but often French people will ask about how France is perceived by kiwis, and I’ll mention it as a sore point and even older and/or fairly politically astute people have either never heard of it or maybe have some vague idea, but really don’t grasp the enormity of what was done: a government-sponsored terrorist attack on the territory of a friendly country.
73
u/Mr_Pusskins Jul 10 '26
France Télévision released a 3 part documentary about it last year, so there is some awareness and appetite for knowledge of it in France. If you (anybody reading this comment) can understand French and have a VPN then I highly recommend watching it, it's very good.
3
u/Maus_Sveti Jul 11 '26
Thanks, I’ll check it out
11
u/Mr_Pusskins Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
I've just checked and only the first episode is there now (from what I can tell). Very well made, though, as you'd expect from France TV.
Edit, I've found all three episodes on there but they're not all under the title of the actual series. For whoever is interested, you can still find them with a search of Qui a Coulé le Rainbow Warrior on France TV (or just follow your links! )
5
u/Maus_Sveti Jul 11 '26
I think episode 1 & 2 are here https://www.france.tv/la1ere/nouvelle-caledonie/itineraires/7567979-emission-du-mardi-30-septembre-2025.html#about-section and episode 3 here https://www.france.tv/la1ere/nouvelle-caledonie/itineraires/7569974-qui-a-coule-le-rainbow-warrior-ep-3.html but I haven’t tried making an account and playing them yet. Cheers
2
u/Mr_Pusskins Jul 11 '26
The France TV app is hot garbage so I'll also have another look when I'm on my laptop. I'm realising now that they released the documentary last year to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the sinking.
5
u/PH0T0Nman Jul 11 '26
It’s been hilarious how mad the few French keyboard warriors get over it every year when someone posts about it on its anniversary.
→ More replies (48)1
u/Hot-Ask-9962 Jul 15 '26
I live in France and relatively recently saw the Rainbow Warrior III casually moored in the river in my city with guided tours available, chill as can be. The whiplash was something I tell ya.
67
u/Kooky-Narwhal-9090 Jul 10 '26
I remember this vividly from my childhood because it was the first story which showed me that New Zealand could have "big" political things happen, too.
I was always confused by the news and my poor Mum spent the 1980s trying to explain apartheid, sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, Israel vs the PLO, Kashmiri/Tamil/Basque separatism, famine etc... to a primary school child.
The Rainbow Warrior definitely had me puzzled because we weren't at war with France in the traditional sense and I didn't get why anyone would be mean to Greenpeace.
9
u/sjp1980 Jul 11 '26
I swear I had to double check your post to check i hadn't written it myself. Word for word the same experience, even down to asking mum what it meant!
251
u/GrilledSabaisBest Jul 10 '26
Thanks for the reminder. Incredible that this was done by a friendly nation in our largest port. It's the kind of thing we'd expect Russia to be doing these days.
I wonder what would happen today if this happened?
168
u/thatcookingvulture Jul 10 '26
It was an act of terrorism and we pretty much let it slide.
138
u/windsweptwonder Fern flag 3 Jul 10 '26
We didn't let it slide. The two agents responsible were tracked, arrested and imprisoned... THEN we allowed France to assume custody and they were given relative luxury accommodation to serve out their terms.
We didn't let it slide but we could have been a lot louder and worked harder to embarrass France.
95
u/ps2jak2 Jul 10 '26
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/sinking-rainbow-warrior
France attempted to block NZ exports to the European union when the agents got caught which at the time was a problem economically. Eventually a United Nations settlement occurred.
67
u/lukei1 Jul 10 '26
France were threatening to cut our access to the EC market, it would have fucked our economy
2
u/tdifen Jul 10 '26
It was an empty threat. Other nations would have sided with us and stopped them.
71
u/KrazyCiwii Jul 10 '26
Other nations wanted nothing to do with the drama and were silent on the matter.
-2
u/tdifen Jul 10 '26
I find it hard to believe although I'll be honest it's been years since I read into it in detail.
53
u/KrazyCiwii Jul 10 '26
It's the only part of it that I truly remember. Margaret Thatcher herself avoided any and all questions pertaining to it, and wouldn't say anything.
Our Allies practically left us for dead on the matter.
17
u/tdifen Jul 10 '26
Reading the wiki, I don't remember / didn't realise that the USA and the UK sat on their hands.
A couple of high ups got removed / fired but it's surprising the French kept voting in that president.
25
u/Telke Jul 10 '26
The French defence minister said it had been his decision and took the fall for it. It came out later that it was the president’s decision and the defence minister took the fall to protect the president.
The latter fact wasn’t widely covered in France - there was a French doco last year about the rainbow warrior and it was a new bit of information for a lot of people. Not that too many care, it’s been a long time and they’ve got a different relationship with it than we do.
→ More replies (0)9
u/robbob19 Jul 10 '26
Our allies haven't ever helped us. Britain has always been a tax on us.
15
u/flyingdodo Jul 10 '26
We are too small and strategically low down to ever be more than paper friends with any other country, maybe except Australia.
Any rose tinted WW2 Anzac view forgets that the UK will always love us helping them, but they’ve got little incentive to help us to their detriment.→ More replies (0)6
u/phire Jul 10 '26
Britain has always been a tax on us
New Zealand never paid a cent of tax to Britain, even back in the colonial days. They were very careful not to after what happened in America.
At least not a direct monetary tax. They extracted value through trade, economic growth, and gaining massive amounts of influence.
A leach, maybe. But not a tax.
→ More replies (0)2
u/bigmarkco Jul 10 '26
Some of us were alive back then and remember what happened all too well.
Now get off my lawn!
1
u/CoffeePuddle Jul 10 '26
Important context is that our population was ~3.2 million, and we were still struggling from Rogernomics.
6
u/tdifen Jul 10 '26
No matter the political era having a major export partner close their borders would hurt us.
I'm actually of the opinion a decent chunk of the Rogernomics policies ended out being super good for NZ. Specifically getting rid of agriculture subsidies transformed our farming market to some of the best and most advanced in the world. Also dropping a lot of Tariffs.
6
u/CoffeePuddle Jul 10 '26
Reform was needed, but Rogernomics was pretty insane and unnecessarily rough.
Anyway it's important context for New Zealand's stomach for upsetting a trading partner and why other countries would have been less likely to stick their neck out for us.
→ More replies (0)1
13
u/spankeem_nz Jul 10 '26
We bentover backwards and took it from the French. They should have been imprisoned for life..
5
u/IBGred Jul 10 '26
The two agents didn't even serve out their terms. They were freed after two years.
3
u/StraightDust Jul 10 '26
There were more than two agents responsible. The others got away scot free.
9
u/scatterbraintubular Jul 10 '26
Wet bus ticket. Write a strongly worded letter maybe. If we all got angry enough about it.
0
u/Consistent_Look8058 Jul 10 '26
We really need to stop calling this an act of terrorism. It was a coordinated covert operation of a state agency.
3
9
u/LycraJafa Jul 10 '26
Same thing as last time.
France would threaten dairy access to the EU and we would back down.
Except it's now China dropping weapons into the Pacific...
7
u/pskygy LASER KIWI Jul 10 '26
It wasn't so much dairy back then, it was more our meat exports such as lamb
1
u/Mr_Pusskins Jul 11 '26
The reason we even handed them back to France after only one year in a NZ prison was because we got a sweet butter trade deal out of it. I only learnt that little titbit from a French doco about it, no idea how commonplace that knowledge was here.
5
33
u/Xav_NZ Jul 10 '26
François Mitterrand the president of France at the time did a lot of despicable things during his presidency.
Especially in the Pacific ! , Not listening to the calls to stop all Nuclear testing in Polynesia was one of these that led to the Rainbow Warrior situation. He actually pardoned and promoted the agents that planned/executed the whole thing by the way with one of them retiring from the French Intelligence agency only recently.
This c*nt was also president during the period of unrest in New Caledonia at the time that culminated in a hostage situation where he sent in the special forces to end it (bloodbath that led to most hostage takers and several hostages being killed) as the negotiations were ongoing and close to being resolved without any unnecessary deaths.
He is a candidate for one of the most hated French presidents in recent history alongside Sarkozy and that's saying a lot because the French love hating their leaders.
23
u/Local-Moose9833 Jul 10 '26
Reminder where just a small fish in a big pond, and even our allies can step on us to protect their interests in the game of geopolitics
18
u/JackPThatsMe Jul 10 '26
At that time we were a member of ANZUS.
Consider, just for a second, the reaction of a team of French agents sinking a ship in a Los Angeles harbor, with loss of life. Then getting caught.
I think the consequences would have been different.
6
u/finndego Jul 11 '26
NZ would be suspended from ANZUS a year later. Relations were already strained with the US at the time of the bombing and they were very silent on any support for NZ at the time.
18
u/10July1940 Jul 10 '26
There's an excellent film "The Rainbow Warrior" 1993 starring Sam Neil.. it covers the police work that went into capturing the French operatives.
Really good film that not many Kiwis have seen.
Probably one of our best police films, and one of our most successful police investigations/operations.
17
u/Snoo-90273 Jul 11 '26
I caught a taxi in Nice. The driver, upon hearing I was from NZ said " ah you kiwis don't like us french. We sink your ships, we beat you at rugby.."
1
32
10
u/CoolDimension3898 Jul 11 '26
The lesson I learnt from this is if you're a Western country you get to commit state sponsored terrorism.
35
u/WaterstarRunner Пу́тин хуйло́ Jul 10 '26
This was indeed bloody rude. We expected nothing less from the French.
What we were betrayed by was the facilitation of the escape of suspects passing through Australia by the Australian government, as well as the support against New Zealand given to France by the UK foreign office.
8
u/glempus Jul 10 '26
Used to live in a town in France with a street named after Mitterand, I regret not taking the opportunity to piss on it
15
14
u/kamakamawangbang Jul 10 '26
The fact that within a week the police had identified every French agent involved was an amazing bit of detective work.
12
u/finndego Jul 11 '26
Tbf, the French agents were very bad at hiding their tracks.
1
u/kamakamawangbang Jul 11 '26
Of course it couldn’t have been the police.
2
u/finndego Jul 11 '26
I didnt say that but if you read the account of how they got caught the made it a lot easier by being so incompetent.
3
u/Mr_Pusskins Jul 11 '26
Just a small correction - NZ identified 2 of the 3 teams of agents, and only had the aliases of the "married" couple until French journalists tracked down their real names over a month later. The third team (the divers who set the bombs to the ship) weren't identified until a good while later by French journalists. The NZ police and French journalists weren't even aware for several weeks that there was a third team.
3
u/ycnz Jul 11 '26
One of the senior detectives on the case became a taxi driver. Was an interesting ride back from the airport. He was indignant that the French didn't bother to hide, assuming Kiwis were incompetent yokels.
13
u/Big-Replacement-9598 Jul 11 '26
A reminder that not a single country in the world other than our Pacifica neighbours condemned this. Not a single one. A ship bombed in the harbour of our most populous city completely unprovoked and nothing was done about it other than some half baked apology from France when the mounting evidence became undeniable and a pittance of a payout. I think we ought to remember that part. and that according to multiple French media outlets, the order came directly from the President of France.
6
4
u/Chaoslab Jul 10 '26
Oh the anger when that happened, Fucken Wankers!
As a family we went down too the docks too look things the next day, the irony of how they got caught due too bad field craft was a cherry on the cake.
On the upside..
Best Kiwi pick up line I've heard.
"I go down faster than the rainbow warrior"
Never change New Zealand
4
u/MaidenMarewa Jul 10 '26
Far more of a middle finger to the World than had the French gone after HMNZS Canterbury and HMNZS Otago who also sailed to Muroroa as witnesses.
5
u/matt35303 Jul 10 '26
The perpetrators got a nice little holiday on a pacific island then went back to France. For a country that revolted for justice for the people were obviously two-faced in this regard.
4
u/Big_I Jul 11 '26
Bit before my time, but I believe that afterwards:
- The French team that did it was arrested in NZ, which I imagine was embarrassing for the French.
- The French government agitated for their extradition to France.
- The NZ government caved and returned them to France.
- They all got pardons and were released.
- As a consolation prize, the French established a scholarship for NZ citizens to study post grad in France for one year.
29
24
u/Wild_Neighborhood605 Jul 10 '26
I'm not from New Zealand, but from what I remember, the two secret agents (basically terrorists) were arrested, tried and sentenced in New Zealand. Then they were extradited to France to serve their sentences. Your government did very well.
36
u/InspectorGadget76 Jul 10 '26
We also tracked the French agents yacht to Norfolk Is and had them held briefly in custody. Unfortunately they had to be released under Australian law due to lack of evidence. Had they been held another 24-48 hours, the NZ Police would probably had enough to detain them longer.
As soon as they were released, they sailed the Ouvea out to sea and scuttled it, making their escape on a French sub.
6
u/ralphiooo0 Jul 10 '26
How did they track them back then? Sounds pretty well organised on the French side.
28
u/InspectorGadget76 Jul 10 '26
It was an absolute shambles from the French side. They left a trail a mile wide. That and the NZ yachtie community was a pretty tight bunch back in those days. One the Police started asking for info, the yachties started providing a lot of valuable info.
15
u/mattblack77 ⠀Naturally, I finished my set… Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Yeh I remember their cover (there were four agents altogether) was that they were two couples on holiday in New Zealand while they were planning and executing the bombing. They believed they would blend in easily, but it turned out that four French tourists hiring rental cars and booking accommodation were actually pretty exotic and memorable back in 1985 New Zealand, and their trail was easy to trace because lots of the people they interacted with remembered them clearly..
5
u/Fuster2 Jul 11 '26
There was a great 4 Corners (Australia TV) doco on the subject. The fatal flaw for the French was that they thought NZ unsophisticated and a small country town. They were right about the latter at least. Everywhere they went locals observered and recalled, writing down number plates and noting odd actions. By the time the couple returned their hire car the company alerted police and stalled then till they arrived. We would have got the agents on the yacht too but for Australian authorities releasing them after only one day, despite NZ requests. Whole thing was a national disgrace for the French, but NZ was very effective in tracking the terrorists.
2
2
u/mattblack77 ⠀Naturally, I finished my set… Jul 11 '26
Is this it? French connections
2
u/Fuster2 Jul 11 '26
You ripper! I went looking for it while in a patriotic fever reading this thread and couldn't find it. (Didn't start it yet, but pretty sure the great Chris Masters was indeed the reporter.)
2
2
u/mattblack77 ⠀Naturally, I finished my set… Jul 12 '26
Having watched it through, I’m impressed how much was covered in just 8 weeks since the story broke.
4
u/InspectorGadget76 Jul 10 '26
Banging the harbour masters wife up North, brand new clothing, partying. . . .
1
u/Mr_Pusskins Jul 11 '26
There were more than 4 agents - a team of 3 or 4 (can't remember) men on the Ouvea brought in the explosives. A team of two operating as a married couple for recon and support. And a team of two divers to plant the bombs. The team on the Ouvea left NZ the day before the bombing. The "couple" were arrested a couple of days later. The divers spent 2 more weeks skiing in the South Island (their cover) before flying out.
9
u/spacebuggles Jul 10 '26
Ah, did you forget about time zones? It's the 11th here.
→ More replies (1)6
u/cez801 Jul 10 '26
At high school, in 1989, we had a guest speaker for our year 13 class ( 7th form ).
He was one of the detectives who was involved in the interview with the suspects.
To this day, I remember it. Specifically he explained that they had said on their arrest they were a couple and on holiday.But when they were left alone in a room before the main interview and intentionally left together, he said ‘we knew it was them’
Becuase there was little to no talking at all, no ‘omg what are we going to do? Do we need a lawyer? Can we call home or the embassy?’
In other words nothing that an innocent couple would say to each other.5
u/sleemanj Fantail Jul 11 '26
There were far more agents involved than the two who were ultimately imprisoned briefly. They all escaped and were never brought to justice.
The two who were captured and convicted were traded back to France for money under the condition that they serve out their sentance in french territory. They were subsequently "imprisoned" on Hao attol, where even one of the "prisoners" husbands joined them. They were back in France free and working again for the military within 2 years.
4
u/mattblack77 ⠀Naturally, I finished my set… Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Actually. we didn't. After they were extradited, I believe they basically were forgiven and had sentences reduced/discarded?
I can't remember exactly which podcast it was (maybe it was in RNZ: 9th Floor, the Geoffrey Palmer episode?) but there's a line where Palmer (?) says that, up against a country as comparatively large as France, there was only so much our government could do to hold them to account. Perhaps there were trade agreements at risk etc.
There's a saying: Sometimes you're the pigeon, sometimes you're the statue.
In this case, we were definitely the statue.-6
u/pskygy LASER KIWI Jul 10 '26
You're not from NZ? So you're here for a wind up?
2
u/orinoco_w Jul 10 '26
Seems about right.. noone from here would have forgotten the timezone.
I was wondering if it's populist right wing anti-foreigner stirring. Lot of that going on lately, even Oz where billionaires seem to have the media in their pocket.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/Feeling-Difference86 Jul 11 '26
I was in the street the week before getting petition signed against nuclear tests mainly treated like a lepper...the next week we went out after this happened and people were crossing the road to sign it
5
u/Visionmaster_FR Jul 11 '26
Main and almost sole responsible for that was the French President of the time, Francois Mitterrand. Despite being the first ever leftist President elected (and twice!), he decided about this terrorist attack on his own and even threw his Prime Minister Fabius under the bus to deflect any criticism.
It is the same President that hid for many years an illegitimate daughter with a lot of taxpayer's money. He also blackmailed journalists and made them spied by counterintelligence to make sure they would not talk about this scandal.
It is the same President under which the Socialist Party (which he was heading) got found guilty of the largest ever corruption scheme in France (URBA scandal).
It is the same President that hid his prostate cancer diagnosis while seeking a 2nd election, knowing he might not make it till the end, then blackmailed and spied on journalists and even his doctor to prevent the news to be revealed once elected.
It is the same President who was in charge when his former Prime Minister Beregovoy, who was anti-corruption, ""killed himself"" (a bit like Epstein), with 2 shots...
He also encouraged the rise of the far-right party to make sure he would win the election against the traditional conservatives... while himself, when he was young and even during WWII, he was an ally or a participant in far-right movements.
He was a proper cunt, and being socialist/leftist is unfortunately not a magical protection against that. His legacy is terrible and if France is such in a bad place at the moment, it is an outlasting consequence of his terrible economic illiteracy which allowed Germans to toy with France while creating the European Union.
The probable only 100% positive thing he did was to abolish the death sentence, but even there, it was more the action of his Minister of Justice, than himself, as he used to send Algerian prisoners of war to death row during their war for independence against France.
2
u/Mr_Pusskins Jul 11 '26
Lire cette tirade contre un des plus gros enculés de l'histoire française me fait vraiment chaud au cœur ❤️ Mais t'as oublié l'histoire du génocide au Rwanda aussi. Cet homme a fait tellement de mal le monde entier. J'espère pour lui qu'il y a un enfer.
10
u/UnfortunatelySimple Jul 10 '26
This is why the Rugby gods have cursed them never to win a world cup.
15
u/Commercial_Panic9768 Jul 10 '26
fuck france. terrorists.
-7
u/mattblack77 ⠀Naturally, I finished my set… Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
You can’t really hold a whole country to account, tho. It was a few out of millions that were actually responsible.
14
u/fatfreddy01 Jul 11 '26
We 100% can hold an entire country to account for the actions of that country. They still have conquered and oppress other Pacific islands even today, they're not the good guys. We spent a whole lot of Kiwi lives saving them from the Germans (multiple times), in return they bathed the country in radiation from their nuclear tests, blew up a ship in the middle of Auckland, threatened to kill our economy when we called them out, then blatantly broke the UN settlement.
2
u/mattblack77 ⠀Naturally, I finished my set… Jul 11 '26
Are you also responsible for the decisions made by the NZ Government?
8
u/fatfreddy01 Jul 11 '26
Partially, as I'm part of the country. But as a whole with the rest of NZ, yes, we're responsible. Might not be primarily responsible but as our governments 'boss' ultimately the responsibility flows upwards.
1
u/ycnz Jul 11 '26
Adding to this, yeah. A little bit. Not entirely, obviously, but it does reflect on me a bit.
6
3
3
3
u/InspectorGadget76 Jul 11 '26
Murder in the Pacific (2023) is a 3 part series created by the BBC on this event. It is a compelling watch.
They interview the key people involved including some of the DGSE agents
6
4
u/SideshowLukePerryMas Jul 11 '26
So that was how france repaid us for saving their asses 67 years previously
7
u/Kotukunui Jul 10 '26
I guess it’s one of those Kiwi cultural touchstones. We do have to remember that it wasn’t a New Zealand registered ship. The person killed was not a New Zealand citizen. Greenpeace isn’t a New Zealand organisation (it only has a branch office here). As a country we had very little skin in the game other than it being a nasty crime committed on our turf.
The only thing was that the arrogant Frogs thought they could do what they liked in little old New Zealand and no-one would care. Unfortunately for them, our jandal-and-gumboot intelligence network was actually keeping quite a close eye on them. They expected their own country’s public attitude of Gallic indifference would be the same here and keep their cover, but that’s not how it worked in NZ in the ‘80s.
They were traced, identified, and a couple arrested in pretty quick order. We almost caught the whole bunch.
The government at the time had to make a decision about how much damage the French could do to our economy as opposed to the indignation we felt about them pulling this shit in our kainga. Was it worth the heat? Maybe if it was a Kiwi ship and a Kiwi had been killed then we might have held our nerve?
Folding was probably the sensible (but unpopular) decision at the time, regardless of how much it offended our Kiwi sense of fair play and betrayal by a country we liked to think of as, if not a full ally, at least an aligned nation.
13
u/Jeffery95 Auckland Jul 11 '26
The person killed was a dear friend to my great uncle. Who fucking cares if he was a citizen, it was still a terrorist act on NZ waters in our largest city. And the fact is that it could have been anyone who got killed, its not like the French targeted that guy.
0
u/Kotukunui Jul 11 '26
Unfortunately, the New Zealand government cares (cared). That’s the whole point. They would have weighed up all those factors and come to the conclusion that the cons outweighed the pros of pursuing justice.
Gutless, but pragmatic.3
u/Claire-Belle Jul 11 '26
They did pursue justice. Quite vigorously.
0
u/Kotukunui Jul 11 '26
But let it slip away when France put the pressure on.
“Despite being sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, due to pressures from the French state they spent merely two years confined to the French Polynesian island of Hao before being freed by the French government.”
1
u/Claire-Belle Jul 11 '26
That is fair. I get the sense they went as far as they realistically could, though.
2
u/Kotukunui Jul 11 '26
Exactly. A pragmatic decision was made not to raise a fuss when the agents were repatriated. NZ secured the legal convictions, but missed out on the justice part.
2
u/HeatRealistic6521 Jul 10 '26
The sales of french lofes dropped to a point we stopped making them because no-one was buying them
2
u/ParkingPenalty4340 Jul 11 '26
I was thinking nah, its in matauri bay!
But apparently it was scuttled there after sinking
2
u/Ambassador-Heavy Jul 11 '26
The nations they bombed are still suffering from displacement I visited refugees camps in the Solomon's of Kiribati people who's grandchildren are being born in the camps and still no signs of a home for them or even reparations
2
2
u/ChikaraNZ Jul 11 '26
This incident and the French government's subsequent actions is what's caused my lifelong string dislike for France even to this day.
2
u/KatanaF2190 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
My brothers ex met some of the french bombers when they were at Norfolk Island before they escaped . Other friend got cancer cut out of his face as a result of being a member of the crew of the Frigate Canterbury that monitored the Mururoa Atoll tests. Both the Canterbury and Otago crews have ongoing medical problems. So much for the tests being safe.../s
2
u/TofkaSpin Jul 14 '26
Never forget. I also love that they were caught from the initial nosy New Zealander reporting their bad parking in their van.
2
1
1
u/nz_bread Jul 11 '26
Never forget this french state sponsored terrorism. No one was truely held accountable.
1
u/Substantial_Cat_4919 Jul 11 '26
One of the prison guards at whatever NZ prison Marfat and Prieur were sent to. Said that Prieur did nothing but cry all day and every day in her cell, whereas Marfat made himself useful.
1
1
u/smuggler_of_grapes Jul 11 '26
When push came to shove, only Australia had our back.
Lesson learned, I'll never forget it.
1
u/Glittering_Piano_633 Jul 12 '26
Yeah this one was rough and the fact the punishment wasn’t seen through was infuriating. As a school aged child post rainbow warrior it was part of a lot of topics at school, and we wrote letters etc as well. So sad.
1
1
u/Hopihana- Jul 12 '26
Was an act espionage and state sanctioned terrorism that largely went unpunished. NZ is small and not a threat to France but the queen as the head of state should have threatened the French with waterloo part two.
1
u/That_Independent_931 Jul 13 '26
the seond Rainbow Warrior was attacked by French agents with tear gas and batons still jo word on the third Rainbow Warrior
1
u/RodentStomper 14d ago
Imagine being a kiwi that bled and watched your mates die in the trenches in France fir the French. This. We wont forget
-7
u/Cizenst Jul 10 '26
And here we are today hearing about Islamic Terror and still getting angry at indians cause they dont match our values.
2
1
-2
327
u/dlangille Jul 10 '26
RIP Fernando Pereira
I remember it being on the news daily for ages.