How Does France Manage Old Chemical Weapons?
Update
October 14, 2013 : a ministerial decree permits ASTRIUM to build SECOIA at Mailly-le-Camp.
—————————–
For 13 years, Robin des Bois has been working on the war waste issue including chemical weapons. Considering the current state of development it seems useful to review the doctrine and the actual practice of France in relation to the international Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction known as the Chemical Weapons Convention. The majority of chemical weapons to be destroyed on French territory were made with phosgene and chloropicrin, mustard gas and chlorobenzene, zinc tetrachloride, arsenic and cyanide.
Waiting for the bomb squad – War Remains Inventory from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2011
Contents
Introduction
The unsettling truths – The battlefields of northern and eastern France – Old weapons kill – Old weapons pollute – Old weapons harm flora and fauna – Chemical weapons
War Remains Inventory from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2011 with maps:
Franche-Comté Region
Alsace Region
Lorraine Region
Champagne-Ardenne Region
Ile-de-France Region
Picardie Region
Nord – Pas-de-Calais Region
Summary map
Sources
Introduction
War remnants do not have a course. Old weapons kill, pollute, and are the enemies of biodiversity. Following their previous research, Robin des Bois has published a new inventory of weapons discovered in the 7 regions in the north and east of France, casualties of the wars of 1870, 1941-18, and 1939-45.
Open letter about a secret
“Public archives may not be consulted if their disclosure is likely to result in the dissemination of information enabling the design, manufacture use or location of nuclear weapons, chemical weapons or any other weapons with direct or indirect destructive effects of a similar level”.
This paragraph, insidiously slipped into the middle of the bill on reforming access to archives currently being examined by the Senate and the National Assembly, undermines the safety and security of future generations, the regulatory framework on polluted sites and the “Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction”.
No Armistice for War Remnants
The abandoned ammunition on French ground by the last three wars’ soldiers is industrial waste with no place to go. The waste was subjected to unforeseen discoveries, to disorganized storage, to centers of destruction located very far from centers of “production”, and to unexpected transfers — it is therefore why one recovers bombs in garbage dumps, grenades in potato sacks originating from the north of France, and shrapnel in a marine sandlot delivered to an equestrian center. The law of silence applies to these objects and substances. It is impossible to know the state of chemical ex-ammunition stocks, and at the same time, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are quasi-abandoned in plain view, like at the Mars-de-Tour (54), in contradiction with the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons and Their Destruction, (CWC). These abandonments expose the environment and public security to risks of pollution, theft, and blackmail. The construction, and even the location of a destruction factory for this type of ammunition, is always deferred. After abandoned military sites are transferred to civil use, they are not subject to surface and subsurface decontamination 50 cm deep, leaving to the instigators the responsibility of underground decontamination.
