May 11, 2002	Saturday	Safar 27, 1423

PARIS, May 10: The terrorist attack on French naval employees in Karachi is expected to play a central role in France’s legislative elections scheduled for June 9 and 16 in more ways than one _ and in a special manner that could prove embarrassing to President Jacques Chirac.

In order to be able to carry out the policies on which he himself was successfully re-elected May 5 to the French presidency, Mr Chirac feels it imperative that he be able to have his own working majority, and to this end has chosen to create his new UMP movement, which is centred on his own Gaullist political party.

Bernard Cazeneuve, the mayor of Cherbourg (the city where most of the victims of the attack lived) and a deputy who represents the city’s interests in the National Assembly, has decided to make public what he considers to be an insulting behaviour on the part of Defence Minister Mrs Michele Alliot-Marie, who visited Pakistan on Thursday.

As mayor of Cherbourg and also a member of the powerful defence committee of the National Assembly, Mr Cazeneuve thought it normal that he should accompany Mrs Alliot-Marie on the French governmenal aircraft that transported to Karachi a special delegation that included her personal entourage, several doctors, some French counter-intelligence and anti-terrorism specialists, as well as a number of journalists.

Mr Cazeneuve thought indeed that he had an invitation from the newly-appointed defence minister to accompany her on the mission, and considered it normal that he be able to personally visit with the wounded residents of Cherbourg at Aga Khan hospital in Karachi, many of them persons whom he knew on a first-name basis.

Oh his way from Cherbourg to Paris, Mr Cazeneuve was called on his mobile phone to be told that in spite of the support of one of Mrs Alliot-Marie’s predecessors, Socialist Minister Paul Quiles, he (Cazeneuve), would not be able to take part in the flight because “there is no place for him”.

On being queried about the refusal by Mrs Alliot-Marie to include him on her flight, Mr Cazeneuve did admit that the “true reason” behind the refusal was his past statements on Franco-Pakistani military cooperation, which during a ten-year period brought in revenues for France totalling 1.5 billion dollars.

Mr Cazeneuve added that a few weeks ago he had authored a report which proposed that France’s military cooperation with any country, Pakistan included, should be subject to certain provisos.

“It is not possible to undertake military cooperation accords with governments where the principle of good governance is not respected, and with countries where human rights are not accorded top priority.”

Given Wednesday’s attack in Karachi and Deputy Cazeneuve’s snub by Mrs Alliot-Marie, it is likely, say Socialist Party officials, that the terrorist attack in Karachi as well as the continuation of Franco-Pakistani military cooperation could very well play a central role in legislative elections.

Another issue that could be exploited during the election campaign concerns the revelations made by a French anti-terrorism specialist that France has already been a target of previous attacks in Pakistan, attacks that are known to French authorities but until now have never been made public.

Roland Jacquard, author of a biography of Osama bin Laden, revealed on Wednesday that in an incident which until now had never been made public, a bomb was found earlier this year under the car belonging to the wife of the French military attache assigned to the French embassy in Islamabad.