French ship arrives in NZ

First Edition

A Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior arrived here Monday without a ripple of protest, AFP reports from Auckland.

The Jacques Cartier, a light amphibious transport ship based in New Caledonia, is the first French naval ship to visit since 1983.

In 1985 contacts between New Zealand and France were frozen after French secret agents slipped into Auckland harbour and planted bombs aboard the Rainbow Warrior, sinking it with the death of a photographer.

The Rainbow Warrior had been due to sail to the French nuclear test site at Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia.