The World Court tossed out New Zealand's attempt to halt French nuclear tests in the South Pacific, but the issue haunted European Union and international atomic agency meetings Friday.
Adding fuel to the fire, a top official in Paris said France will likely carry out another nuclear test within 10 days - one that could be even more powerful than the underground blast at Mururoa Atoll on Sept. 5.Jacques Baumel, vice president of the French National Assembly's defense commission, said the next test aims to check the reliability of the new TN-75 warhead that will be used in submarine-based missiles.
French President Jacques Chirac will be called upon to defend his nuclear testing program as he mingles with other EU leaders at a summit on the Spanish resort island of Mallorca. The two-day meeting opened Friday.
"It is dangerous that a country like France will go on testing," said Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carl-sson. "There might be countries just on the verge of developing their own weapons and say `Let's go ahead.' "
Carlsson told reporters he would bring the issue up with Chirac "one way or another."
In a pointed reminder, a banner reading "Chirac Stop Nuclear Test-ing" was emblazoned on a Greenpeace boat easily visible from the summit's seaside hotel.
Delegates in Vienna, meanwhile, wound up the annual conference of the 122-nation International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with a resolution urging a halt to nuclear testing.
It was sponsored by 18 countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Japan, which have openly condemned France's resumption of tests after a three-year moratorium.
The non-binding resolution did not mention France by name and came after heated debate.
World Court judges in The Hague rejected New Zealand's attempt to halt French nuclear tests by refusing to reopen a 1973 case against France's atmospheric atomic testing.
The court ruled that since New Zealand's 1973 case concerned atmospheric tests, it couldn't be reopened to cover the current under-ground testing program.
New Zealand's request for an emergency test ban while the issue was being adjudicated was also rejected.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger conceded that the result "was not unexpected."