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The Rainbow Warrior 1985-2025.  Part 1: French State Terrorism and the end of innocence. 

Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, July 6th, 2025 - 41 comments
Categories: climate change, defence, Dirty Politics, Environment, global warming, nuclear war, nuclear-free, Pacific, pasifika, Peace, Peace, Spying, surveillance, terrorism - Tags:

Immediately after murdering Fernando Pereira and blowing up Greenpeace’s ship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, several of the French agents went on a ski holiday in New Zealand’s South Island to celebrate.  Such was the contempt the French had for the Kiwis and the abilities of our police to pursue them.  How wrong they were.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the French terrorist attack Little Island Press has published a revised edition of Eyes of Fire first released in 1986.  A new prologue by former prime minister Helen Clark and a preface by Greenpeace’s Bunny McDiarmid, along with an extensive postscript which bring us up to the present day, underline why the past is not dead; it’s with us right now.

Gil Hanly.

Written by David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report, who spent 11 weeks on the final voyage of the Warrior, the book is the most remarkable piece of history I have read this year and one of those rare books that has the power to expand your mind and make your blood boil at the same time. I thought I knew a fair bit about the momentous events surrounding the attack – until I read Eyes of Fire. 

Heroes of our age

The book covers the history of Greenpeace action – from fighting the dumping of nuclear and other toxic waste in European waters, the Arctic and the Pacific, voyages to link besieged communities across the oceans, through to their epic struggles to halt whaling and save endangered marine colonies from predation. The Rainbow Warrior’s very last voyage before the bombing was to evacuate the entire population of Rongelap in the Marshall Islands who had been exposed to U.S. nuclear radiation for decades.  

This article is the first of two in which I  will explore themes that the book triggered for me.  It’s not a review – go and get your own copy right now!

Neither secret nor intelligent – the French secret intelligence service.

Jean-Luc Kister was the DGSE (Direction générale de la Sécurité extérieure) agent who placed the two bombs that ripped a massive hole in the hull of the Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985.  The ship quickly sank, trapping Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira inside. Kister was a member of a large team of elite agents sent to New Zealand. Some had them infiltrated Greenpeace months before, some travelled  through the country prior to the attack drinking, rooting New Zealand women and leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that led all the way to the Palais de l’Élysée where François Mitterrand, Socialist President of France, had personally given the order to bomb the famous peace vessel.  

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Robie aptly calls the French mission ‘Blundergate’.  The stupidity, howling incompetence and moronic lack of a sound strategic rationale behind the attack were only matched by the mendacity, the imperial hauteur and the racist contempt that lies at the heart of French policy in the Pacific to this very day.  

Thinking the Kiwi police would be no match for their élan, their savoir-faire and their panache, some of the killers hit the ski slopes to celebrate ‘Mission Accompli’. Others fled to Norfolk Island aboard a yacht, the Ouvéa.  Tracked there by the New Zealand police it was only with the assistance of our friends and allies, the Australians, that the agents were able to escape. Within days they sank their yacht at sea during a rendezvous with a French nuclear submarine and were able to return to France for medals and promotions. 

Two of the agents however were not so lucky. As everyone my age will recall Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart were nabbed after a lightning fast operation by New Zealand police. 

With friends and allies like these, who needs enemies? 

We should recall that the French were our allies at the time.  They decided, however, to stop the Rainbow Warrior from leading a flotilla of ships up to Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia where yet another round of nuclear tests were scheduled. In other words: they bombed a peace ship to keep testing bombs.  By 1995 France had detonated 193 nuclear bombs in the South Pacific. 

David Robie sees the bombing as “a desperate attempt by one of the last colonial powers in the Pacific to hang on to the vestiges of empire by blowing up a peace ship so it could continue despoiling Pacific islands for the sake of an independent nuclear force.”

The US, UK and Australia cold-shouldered New Zealand through this period and uttered not a word of condemnation against the French. Within two years we were frog-marched out of the ANZUS alliance with Australia and the U.S. because of our ground-breaking nuclear-free legislation. It was a blessing and the dawn of a period in which New Zealanders had an intense sense of national pride – a far cry from today when New Zealand politicians are being referred to the ICC in the Hague for war crimes associated with the Gaza genocide.

The French State invented the term “terrorism”

I studied French History at university in France and did a paper called “La France à la veille de révolution” (France on the eve of revolution). One of the chilling cultural memories is of the period from September 1793 to July 1794 was known as La Terreur. At the time the French state literally coined the term ‘terrorisme’ – with the blade of the guillotine dropping on neck after neck as the state tried to consolidate power through terror. But, as Robie points out, quoting law professor Roger S. Clark, we tend to use the term today to refer almost exclusively to non-state actors.  With the US and Israel gunning down starving civilians in Gaza every day, with wave after wave of terror attacks being committed inside Iran and across the Middle East by Mossad, the CIA and MI6, we should amend this erroneous habit.  

The DGSE team who attached limpet mines to the Rainbow Warrior did so as psychopathic servants of the French State.  Eyes of Fire: “At the time, Prime Minister David Lange described the Rainbow Warrior attack as ‘nothing more than a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism’.”

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not ‘anti-French’.  I lived for years in France, had a French girlfriend, studied French history, language and literature. I even had friends in Wellington who worked at the French embassy. Curiously when I lived next to Premier House, the official residence of the prime minister, my other next door neighbour was a French agent who specialised in surveillance. Our houses backed onto Premier House.  Quelle coïncidence. To his mild consternation I’d greet him with “Salut, mon espion favori.” (Hello, my favourite spy). 

What I despise is French colonialism, French racism, and what the French call magouillage. I don’t know a good English word for it … it is a mix of shenanigans, duplicity, artful deception to achieve unscrupulous outcomes that can’t be publicly avowed.  In brief: what the French attempted in Auckland in 1985. 

Robie recounts in detail the lying, smokescreens and roadblocks that everyone from President Mitterrand through to junior officials  put in the way of the New Zealand investigators. Mitterrand gave Prime Minister David Lange assurances that the culprits would be brought to justice.  The French Embassy in Wellington said at the time: ‘In no way is France involved. The French Government doesn’t deal with its opponents in such ways’.

It took years for the bombshell to explode that none other than Mitterrand himself had ordered the terrorist attack on New Zealand and Greenpeace! 

We the people of the Pacific

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We, the people of the Pacific, owe a debt to Greenpeace and all those who were part of the Rainbow Warrior, including author David Robie. We must remember the crime and call it by its name: state terrorism.  The French attempted to escape justice, deny involvement and then welched on the terms of the agreement negotiated with the help of the United Nations Secretary-General.  

A great way to honour the sacrifice of those who stood up for justice, who stood for peace and a nuclear-free Pacific, and who honoured our own national identity would be to buy David Robie’s excellent book. 

I’ll give the last word to former Prime Minister Helen Clark: 

“This is the time for New Zealand to link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace and which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces – including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence. If our independent foreign policy is to mean anything in the mid-2020s, it must be based on concerted diplomacy for peace and sustainable development.”

You cannot sink a rainbow.

Eugene Doyle  

41 comments on “The Rainbow Warrior 1985-2025.  Part 1: French State Terrorism and the end of innocence.  ”

  1. Ad 1
    6 July 2025 at 9:16 am

    Most of NZs truly activist left collapsed after this terror attack

    So the French may have been klutzes but we all – Lange included – got the message.

    Reply
    • PsyclingLeft.Always 1.1
      6 July 2025 at 9:22 am

      Most of NZs truly activist left collapsed after this terror attack

      Link?

      Reply
      • weka 1.1.1
        6 July 2025 at 11:17 am

        well it did eventually but it was later and because of neoliberalism and a kind of doctrine shock that NZ never recovered from.

        Reply
      • Heather Grimwood 1.1.2
        6 July 2025 at 4:12 pm

        As one of first to realise what happened and pass cheque next day through fence of wharf where bombing happened, I too ask Ad above for link/proof of comment 1.

        Living at Whangaparaoa, we'd gone down to end of peninsula to watch the Rainbow Warrior come down the coast. RNZ a.m. news told of the tragedy, partner called loudly from bathroom wondering who would do that. I replying, "French Secret Service! ", earned considerable macho abuse, but considerable apology that evening on his return from work in city.

        Reply
    • Phillip ure 1.2
      6 July 2025 at 2:01 pm

      @ad…

      The rainbow warrior bombing bowed the nz left into submission..?

      That's both funny..and silly..!

      Got any evidence..?..or just an o.p…?

      Reply
  2. PsyclingLeft.Always 2
    6 July 2025 at 9:30 am

    Eugene, Re : "You cannot sink a rainbow." Also a lot of Info : )

    The Rainbow Warrior III

    https://www.greenpeace.org.au/about-us/greenpeace-ships/rainbow-warrior/

    Reply
  3. Anne 3
    6 July 2025 at 10:40 am

    Let us also not forget there was another act of terror committed on NZ soil in 1984. I refer to the bombing of the Wellington Trades Hall on the 27th March. It was likely linked to the Trade Union's active support of the Peace Movement and a nuclear-free Pacific.

    The police believed it had been carried out by a loner and they spent years harassing a former work colleague of mine who could no more have committed such a crime than fly to the moon. To my knowledge he never received an apology or reparation for the damage they did to his home. He's dead now.

    I have strong suspicions about the handling of that case, but am not at liberty to express them here.

    Reply
  4. Res Publica 4
    6 July 2025 at 10:52 am

    You're right to call the Rainbow Warrior bombing what it was: state-sponsored terrorism.

    But at this point, that’s not exactly a revelation. Forty years on, it's a settled historical fact, acknowledged even by the French state.

    What I struggle with is your constant return to 20th-century battles and outrages, as if we're stuck re-re-re-rehashing the past, while the world falls to pieces around us.

    We’re a quarter of the way into the 21st century and facing climate collapse, AI disruption, authoritarian revival, and a geopolitical realignment not seen since WWII. Yet you keep moaning on about a 40 year old bombing, or in your other recent posts, a coup in Iran from 70 years ago.

    Yes, states sometimes do awful, duplicitous things in the name of strategic interest. That will continue. But endlessly reprising the past does nothing to prepare us for the future and, if anything, anchors our discourse in historical nostalgia nobody under 50 today really cares much about.

    At its worst, it steals political and intellectual oxygen from the many crises we’re facing right now: crises your generation, Helen Clark’s generation, had power to address and largely didn’t.

    Why? because you were too busy trying to re-enact the 1970s and 80s in the 2000s.

    It was misguided and pointless then. And it's even more misguided and pointless now.

    Honor the past, sure. But let’s not lose ourselves in it. The rainbow can’t be sunk, but it also can’t be rebuilt by sailing endlessly around in circles starting at our navels.

    Reply
    • weka 4.1
      6 July 2025 at 11:25 am

      that's a big harsh. I found the post historically interesting, and tied to present day NZ. It's the 40th anniversary of a significant event in our history, it's good to look at what happened and what it meant. The last paragraph is particularly pertinent at this time.

      Reply
      • Anne 4.1.1
        6 July 2025 at 12:33 pm

        Wholly agree.

        The day we stop learning from the past is the day we repeat the mistakes. History has – and always will have – a bearing on present day events. Time also gives us the chance to look back and gain more clarity about events of the past than was possible at the time. For example:

        We all knew about the various movements that were opposed to the nuclear arms race. They were out in the open for all to see. But did most of us appreciate there were opposing 'movements' financially embedded within the nuclear industry? Some of these people were powerful and had a global stretch. They operated covertly against anyone or any group they perceived to be in their way.

        As Deep Throat said at the time of the Watergate scandal: "Follow the money".

        Reply
        • Res Publica 4.1.1.1
          6 July 2025 at 4:48 pm

          If you're reaching back to the 70s to defend rehashing the 80s, you might be missing the point.

          Sure, if we don't learn from history we're doomed to repeat it. But if we never move on from it, we're just stuck reliving it.

          Reply
          • Anne 4.1.1.1.1
            6 July 2025 at 5:07 pm

            No! I was not "reaching back to the 70s.

            There are famous quotes going back centuries (Shakespeare?) which are as relevant today as they ever were. "Follow the money" is one of them.

            Reply
      • Res Publica 4.1.2
        6 July 2025 at 2:04 pm

        Granted, but what can we really learn from the Rainbow Warrior?

        That states sometimes do distaseful things to further their self interests?

        I've been arguing that ever since I started posting.

        That even a post Gaulist France was willing to violate international law and commit terror attacks on their putative allies soil?

        Yup, we noticed.

        That the anti-nuclear movement had a moment because it managed to capture the zeitgeist of an entire generation that grew up in the shadow of the cold war?

        Sure, but that moment has passed.

        Reply
        • weka 4.1.2.1
          6 July 2025 at 2:28 pm

          Lots to be learned from the 1980s about activism. Which we very much need rn.

          What happened to the peace movement in NZ, and its connection with Labour?

          Treating the bombing of the RW as a moment that passed a long time ago and not really relevant any more reminds me of the people who argue that Occupy failed, as if Occupy doesn't sit within a broad stream of time filled with resistance and activism, that built on what came before and which added to what cam afterwards.

          NZ people don't have a good knowledge of activism history, what works and what has been achieved. Imo this is part of why people feel so powerless now (not the only reason, but empowerment to act needs examples of what works).

          Reply
          • Res Publica 4.1.2.1.1
            6 July 2025 at 4:45 pm

            That's a fair point!

            There may be a generational element at play here as my political awakening was shaped more by 9/11 and the Iraq War than ANZUS or Rogernomics, but a lot of this feels like distant history.

            That said, I concede that disconnecting these events from a broader thread of activism risks repeating the same amnesia that undermines movements.

            If there’s one thing we can learn from those earlier waves (Rainbow Warrior included) it’s that movements tend to break through when they tap into a broader public mood or historical shift (like suffragism or anti-apartheid).

            But they’re also often time-bound.

            The window opens briefly, and when it does, we have to move with speed and clarity. Much like Labour could have and arguably should have after 2020.

            Reply
            • weka 4.1.2.1.1.1
              6 July 2025 at 5:24 pm

              I think it's generational too. I left school in 1984. I wasn't particularly following parliamentary politics other than I knew what Marilyn Waring did, and parts of my family loathed Muldoon. But the Tour, the peace movement, Rainbow Warrior, neoliberal reforms (my Dad was made redundant, farmers having their land sold out from under them, the pillorising of unemployed people) were all potent political influences. I knew about earlier activism: Whina Cooper, Bastion Point, Save Manapouri. All of these run in my blood and inform my politics still.

              I wonder if it's different for later generations because a lot of the sense of empowerment had dissipated? Although the protests against the Iraq War were potent, maybe people felt that they failed.

              I also think the internet changed everything.

              Reply
              • Res Publica …
                6 July 2025 at 5:37 pm

                I also think the internet changed everything.

                I think that would be something of a small, several billion percent understatement.

                Reply
            • weka 4.1.2.1.1.2
              6 July 2025 at 5:29 pm

              If there’s one thing we can learn from those earlier waves (Rainbow Warrior included) it’s that movements tend to break through when they tap into a broader public mood or historical shift (like suffragism or anti-apartheid).

              But they’re also often time-bound.

              The window opens briefly, and when it does, we have to move with speed and clarity. Much like Labour could have and arguably should have after 2020.

              this is really good. The whole pandemic was such a moment in time when the potential for really good change was handed to us, and we seriously dropped the ball. I agree that the problems we face now around activism are different. The occupation of parliament grounds should have been by climate activists. Instead we have populism and cookers* breaking society apart and handing the bits to the death cult, and the left/liberals wringing our hands.

              this is the conversation to have though. Where is the next window opening? Are we ready? What are the things that will affect the broader public mood or offer a historical shift?

              *sorry gsays, I think the ship has sailed on that word, although I will still keep an eye on it being used as a pejorative against (specific) people with alternative views.

              Reply
              • gsays …
                6 July 2025 at 5:55 pm

                yes.

                It's use is problematic as a blanket term that encompasses a wide range of opinions and attitudes. eg TERFs or trans-phobe for anyone with a questioning view on 'gender issues'.
                Kinda in the context it was just used.

                Reply
                • weka …
                  6 July 2025 at 6:44 pm

                  how so? I would have thought "and cookers* breaking society apart and handing the bits to the death cult" was quite a narrow group of people rather than being a blanket term encompassing anyone speaking outside of the orthodoxy. I certainly wouldn’t include you in that description, who did you think I meant?

                  Reply
                  • gsays …
                    6 July 2025 at 9:54 pm

                    I thought you meant the heroes of the resistance/parliament ground campers.

                    Yep, having a re-read of yr comment there is a distinction between the occupiers of parliament and what you see as the drivers of dischord nowadays.

                    I'd gotten retrospective reading MS link to the occupation.

                    Reply
                    • weka …
                      7 July 2025 at 9:30 am

                      Well some of the occupiers were definitely off the edge eg the ones calling for death to MPs. Then there were those who trashed the place. I'm not sure who the heroes are, but agree there were a lot of people there with good intentions and needing to speak.

                      My point above was that in 2025 we are in a risky and potentially perilous situation in NZ, and on the broad freedom movement side there are people who are causing a lot of damage. We had a window in 2020 and we blew it. What I'm interested in is if the left has any capacity to remedy that.

                    • gsays []
                      7 July 2025 at 11:24 am

                      I want some capacity for resistance from the left too.

                      Not necessarily around CC initially but work towards that.

                      The nurses are more than likely going on strike at the end of the month.

                      A 24 hour strike, the management can take in its stride. To be effective it needs to be 48 hours at least, 72 hours ideally.

                      Unfortunately it's a big ask for that workforce to forgoe 3 days wages in order to save our health system.

                      I see this upcoming strike as a way for all of us, regardless of our personal politics, to get behind and support our nurses to secure safe staffing levels.

                      At the same time give Simeon Brown a metaphorical blood nose.

                      Take that win and the morale boost and organisation that goes with it and move on to bigger targets.

    • Francesca 4.2
      6 July 2025 at 2:09 pm

      You seem to think the present has arrived on us newly sprung and born without considering it as a trajectory.

      Woe betide us if we fondly imagine times have changed .

      The same dynamics are in play

      Reply
      • Res Publica 4.2.1
        6 July 2025 at 4:52 pm

        Yes, everything is always the same. That’s why we’re still faxing each other about Y2K and getting excited about this hip new thing called the internet.

        Also, watch out for that Saddam guy who’s been fighting the Iranians: real bad egg, that one.

        I get it: the fundamentals of human nature haven’t changed one iota in 4,000 years, let alone 40. But we live in a world Bill Clinton could only have dreamed of when he said, “Yesterday is yesterday. If we try to recapture it, we can only lose tomorrow.”

        Reply
    • Phillip ure 4.3
      6 July 2025 at 2:17 pm

      R.p. has a point ..

      Reply
    • Ignotum 4.4
      7 July 2025 at 10:08 am

      History repeats is the facile answer. Looking back further to the postwar Boomers who radically changed things with flower power and give Peace a Chance I see a re-emergence of millennials, more women in particular, who are likely imo to learn from History lessons rather than repeat

      Reply
  5. Patricia Bremner 5
    6 July 2025 at 12:26 pm

    If we don't learn from past lessons we may not have a future.

    Three things were added to the lexicon.
    “Rainbow Warrior”
    “I can smell the uranium on your breath”
    Nuclear Free.

    We sent our flotilla
    like David against Goliath.
    They sent stooges.

    Todays problems are being exacerbated by a callous self interested cabal imo.
    State terrorism happens when good people standby and let things happen.
    “They choose to sleep in the street”.
    So it begins, the othering, jew arab gentile, our own citizens, leaving in droves or abandoned.
    State sanctioned horrors.

    Reply
  6. gsays 6
    6 July 2025 at 3:00 pm

    Thanks Eugene for the timely and interesting post. I spoke to someone earlier today during a conversation about the test last night. They offered, "I hate the French because of the Rainbow Warrior"

    A phrase from William Blum "A terrorist is someone that has a bomb but doesn't have an air force."

    Reply
    • Res Publica 6.1
      6 July 2025 at 4:57 pm

      Honestly, if you're going to hold a grudge, I'd start with their role in tanking our economy in the '70s by blocking NZ agricultural exports to the EU.

      But sure: let's go with the boat.

      Reply
      • gsays 6.1.1
        6 July 2025 at 5:12 pm

        As Eugene points out;

        "The US, UK and Australia cold-shouldered New Zealand through this period and uttered not a word of condemnation against the French. Within two years we were frog-marched out of the ANZUS alliance with Australia and the U.S. because of our ground-breaking nuclear-free legislation. It was a blessing and the dawn of a period in which New Zealanders had an intense sense of national pride…"

        They lived on a yacht for many years and are old school hippies,
        So yeah, I can see why they " go with the boat."

        Reply
  7. Drowsy M. Kram 7
    6 July 2025 at 8:43 pm

    Looking foward to Part 2.

    Reply
  8. PsyclingLeft.Always 8
    10 July 2025 at 7:52 am

    "And I think the really good thing was the stamina of Greenpeace and other activists to get back up and carry on."

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/566469/rainbow-warrior-bombing-40th-anniversary-advocates-warn-of-expanding-nuclearism-in-pacific

    Fuckin' Aye ! We are still here.

    Reply

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