“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”.
As part of the protection of the physical and health safety of the public and the environment, it is planned to provide information on the quality of the air or water when they are contaminated by chemical residues generated by diffuse or fixed sources such as old munitions, and to give precautionary instructions to the populations.
As part of the regulations governing sites polluted by the effects and products of past activities, preliminary and in-depth historical studies are required. One of the sources for these studies is public archives at all levels.
As part of the Convention on Chemical Weapons and their Destruction, signed by France, there is an obligation to locate, store and destroy chemical weapons.
Consequently, the Robin des Bois NGO considers that a legislative provision leading to the non-disclosure without time restriction of public documents enabling the location of chemical weapons which, by international obligation and in accordance with the precautionary principle, must be located and destroyed, would be in contradiction with existing regulations and with the spirit of openness which must prevail in democracies. Currently, the French Heritage Code stipulates that public archive documents containing information relating to State security or national defence may be disclosed after 60 years, which is already a very long time in view of the risks posed to people and the environment by chemical munitions or their degradation by-products. As for definitive non-disclosure, this is unacceptable.
Lots of shadows and unspoken facts hover over the chemical weapons produced and not used in France and neighbouring countries, over their condition and their management methods; the more time passes, the more likely they are, under the attack of corrosion and other natural aggressions, to release toxic gases or liquids into the environment and to have these “indirect effects” mentioned in paragraph 18 of article 11, chapter III of the bill.
If this provision were to be maintained, it would deprive all researchers, hydrogeologists, experts in polluted sites and all elected representatives of an important means of revealing the truth or ensuring safety after unresolved accidents or prior to urban developments in their areas.
This attempt comes at a time when the management of chemical munitions gathered or discovered in warfields is experiencing major failures and delays with regard to the aforementioned Convention. On the temporary and unsuitable site at Suippes (Marne), more than 200 tonnes of old munitions containing phosgene, yperite, arsine and chloropicrin are currently stored.
What’s more, we also draw your attention to the incompatibility of this new category of incommunicable archives with the research being undertaken into the transmission of memory over centuries or even millennia to help future generations and civilisations locate any geological repositories of nuclear waste.
It is up to you, Ladies and Gentlemen, elected representatives of the Senate and the National Assembly, to reject this law of silence and to refer it to the Constitutional Council to test its legitimacy.
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