But "terror-bombing" has been everyone's game since World War II.
The French are no exception.
Rainbow Warrior bombing.
As it emerged that the bombing was a deliberate act of sabotage, there was little doubt in Greenpeace minds who was responsible. Two days after the bombing the French Embassy in Wellington issued a statement echoing the flat denials emanating from Paris. 'In no way is France involved,' it declared. 'The French Government doesn't deal with its opponents in such ways.' But within a few days police had arrested French secret service agents Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur as they tried to return their van to an Auckland hire company. While they were held in custody, the charter yacht Ouvea, carrying another team of agents implicated in the bombing, sailed to Norfolk Island and then disappeared a few days out to sea heading north for Tahiti. Her crew was reportedly picked up by the French nuclear submarine Rubis, which turned up in Tahiti on July 22 - the first time a French nuclear submarine had been known to enter the South Pacific.
The international outcry pressured the French Government into setting up its own inquiry. After less than three weeks the head of the inquiry, Bernard Tricot, a former Director-General of the Elysee Palace, announced, 'On the basis of the information available to me at this time, I do not believe there was any French responsibility.' The French agents caught in New Zealand were merely there to spy on Greenpeace, Tricot implied, not to bomb them.
