Declaration from the Support Committee
The French people have never been consulted on the question of nuclear weapons, although these are weapons for committing crimes against humanity, and are built in the people’s name and using their taxes - 300 billion Euros so far, and still counting.
50 years of a military and nuclear pact of silence, that’s far too much. Now is the time for change.
Let’s insist that the new President of the French Republic, the new government and the parliamentary candidates all commit France to negotiating a Convention for the Elimination of all Nuclear Weapons. This matter is on the international agenda now, and must be put the French people: « Are you in favour of France participating with the other states concerned in the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, under a system of mutual and international monitoring that is strict and effective ? » To obtain a referendum that will enable this question to be decided democratically, Jean-Marie Matagne, aged 68 ans, the President of ACDN, began a hunger strike on 15 May 2012.
Support this action, join us in seconding it by all the means at our disposal.
Contact the Support Committee : CSGF-RAHAN (Comité de Soutien à la Grève de la Faim pour un Référendum et l’Abolition Historique des Armes Nucléaires)
+33 5 16 22 01 39 csgf.rahan@gmail.com http://referendumabolition.over-blog.com
- Write to the French President:
Monsieur le Président de la République Palais de l’Elysée 55 Rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré 75008 Paris
(Please send a copy to the Support Committee)
For financial support: make out cheques to "ACDN" (mention on the back “support for hunger strike”)
Adress: CSGF C/o ACDN, 31 rue du Cormier 17100 - Saintes FRANCE
Thoughts of the day, from Jean-Marie Matagne
15 May: "For me it’s the start of the hunger (faim). For nuclear weapons I’d like it to be the start of the end (fin). I’m not asking much, just a spelling adjustment for two words that sound the same.”
16 May: "A hunger strike is the ultimate deterrence weapon for the weak against the strong.”
17 May: "Today is when Catholics mark Ascension Day. Jesus ascended to heaven 2000 years ago. He was lucky: there were no atomic mushrooms then, nor radioactive clouds."
18 May: "A friend writes to me saying ’It is alleged that God’s fire that destroyed Gomorrah was nuclear’. Maybe that explains why some human leaders are determined to keep their terrifying toys: they think they are God."
19 May : The people are living on a powder-keg. They prefer to ignore it. So do the fireworks-makers.
20 May : Apart from preaching “peace to men of good will”, what is France’s Roman Catholic Church doing? The opposite of what it preaches, because France’s nuclear strike-force would have been ended long ago without the church’s complicity. Ignore the Gospel, ignore the Pope. Gallicanism, what a beautiful French heresy!
21 May : One good thing about the new régime hollandais*: it enables one to lose a kilo a day. [* Dutch diet, but also the Hollande administration].
22 May : Solidarity can blow your hat off: often it comes from an unexpected quarter, not from where you expected it.
23 May : There are birds singing here in all the branches. A free concert. They are not yet mechanical or radioactive. Lord, protect them from human stupidity, and us too...