26 July 2019 The Nuclear Disarmament Flame was lit for the first time in Saintes (Western France) in May 2001 on the occasion of the 1st Nuclear Disarmament Days organised by ACDN and several other organisations. It is periodically re-lit in Saintes. It burns every year from August 6 to August 9 to commemorate the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was lit notably in 2015 : Saintes commemorates the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki This year the commemoration ceremony will be held on Tuesday 6 August at 11 a.m. in Saintes in front of the Monument to the Fallen, in the Place du Palais de Justice. Last year the Mayor of Hiroshima, Kazumi Matsui, wrote to us: And the Mayor of Nagasaki, Tomihisa Taue, sent us this message: "Today, 73 years after the end of the Second World War, there are still 14450 nuclear warheads in the world”...”What is most worrying for the regions that have suffered from nuclear bombing is the newly-visible tendency of some nations to reinforce their military power by means of nuclear weapons, maintaining stubbornly that such arms are necessary.” In fact, since 1953 and the Korean War, we have never been so close to atomic catastrophe. It is urgent to abolish these weapons. Cf. An Urgent Task: to Abolish Nuclear and Radioactive Weapons. According to an IFOP poll, 85 % of French citizens want France to act for the abolition of nuclear and radioactive weapons, and wish to have a say on this through a referendum. So that the spectre of unthinkable carnage can disappear. So that one individual or a handful of people can no longer have the power to provoke a universal disaster. We hope that many of the city’s residents, visitors and neighbours will come to show their wish for abolition by taking part in the ceremony on August 6. For more information : contact@acdn.net
"It is my sincere hope that your city will continue to work with us to achieve our objectives: “Realization of a world without nuclear weapons” and “Realization of safe and resilient cities", which we believe will lead us to our ultimate goal, that of lasting world peace."
Tel. +33 6 73 50 76 61