Media Release from ACDN

On 21 September 2002, the UN’s International Day of Peace was also the 251st day of the war in Ukraine, and the day when its instigator Vladimir Putin declared to his people that the West wants to destroy Russia, and threatened us again with his atomic weapons.

France’s nuclear arms, those of NATO, failed to prevent the invasion of Ukraine or to prevent those frightening threats. We can even say that they provided the manure in which they grew.

These weapons, whoever possesses them, whether a sage or a fool, a democrat or a dictator, are mad by their very nature. They are massacre weapons, terror weapons, arms for crimes against humanity - they make no distinction between civilians and soldiers, between citizens and leaders. Humanity, educated by the Hitler experience, ought to have got rid of them long ago, and prevented any kind of person from obtaining them.

The war in Ukraine is the last warning before Doomsday. Without waiting any longer, the peoples of the world must heed the warning and force all the heads of nuclear-armed states to draw the only reasonable and methodical solution: they must meet and negotiate the balanced and total elimination of these weapons, with strict mutual and international control.

France must take the initiative to convene these negotiations, since none of the nuclear states has yet done so, despite the obligation they have had since 1970, when the Non-Proliferation Treaty on nuclear weapons (NPT) entered into force.
France’s parliament and people must submit this demand to the President of the Republic and the government. This can be required only a shared-initiative referendum which puts to all French citizens that following question, which has never been posed:
"Are you in favour of France taking part in the abolition of nuclear and radioactive weapons and committing with all the states concerned to negotiations aimed at drawing up, ratifying and implementing a treaty to ban and completely eliminate nuclear and radioactive weapons, under mutual and international control that is strict and effective."

A Referendum Bill on this question is now being submitted to parliamentarians. It needs to be signed by 20% of them (185 out of 925) and then within nine months obtain the support of 10% of all registered voters, signing by electronic means or on paper at Town Halls.

We call on all our citizens to support this initiative and to join the committee backing this Referendum Bill.

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21 September was the International Day of Peace, and the 26th will be the Day for the total elimination of nuclear weapons - both under the auspices of the United Nations.
In this context, ACDN invites you to a conference with paired speakers and a public debate to be held

in Saintes on Saturday 24 September at 4pm, Salle Saintonge N°5.
(11 Rue Fernand-Chapsal)
On this occasion, the Nuclear Disarmament Flame, the only one in France, will be lit in the courtyard of the Salle Saintonge, as was done for the first time in May 2001 by the mayor of Saintes Bernadette Schmitt.

Programme

Lighting of the Nuclear Disarmament Flame followed by :

CONFERENCE by paired speakers

• Jacques Terracher
Technicien de l’aéronautique, administrateur d’ACDN, membre de la CLI de Civaux
His topic: "Nuclear Power with fissures and corruption"

• Jean-Marie Matagne
Docteur en philosophie
Président de l’Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire (ACDN)
His topic: "War in Ukraine: Doomsday tomorrow?"

ALSO

Report on a poll by IFOP-ACDN as of 22 September 2022 : "What do the French people think about the abolition of nuclear and radioactive weapons?"

PUBLIC DEBATE

"Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, Fukushima, Zaporizhzha...
How can we neutralise the danger of nuclear arms and nuclear power-plants?"