May 14, 2002	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 1, 1423

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PARIS, May 13: Accompanied by his new prime minister Jean- Pierre Raffarin and defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie, president Jacques Chirac came to Cherbourg this morning to mourn the 11 dead French naval employees killed in last Wednesday’s terrorist attack in Karachi.

Chirac also announced that under his leadership France would no longer allow itself to be humiliated through such attacks and planned to see to it that “all those found guilty (of such acts) be punished.”

After decorating each of the dead with the Legion of Honour, the much-coveted French decoration initiated by Napoleon Bonaparte which is presently celebrating its 200th anniversary, Chirac announced that France would not be a “sanctuary” for terrorists, and that France would “not giving in to threats and blackmail.”

He also made it clear that “the authors (of the Karachi terrorist attack) would be found and (appropriately) punished.”

Chirac also let it be known that he’d ordered that several categories of French government employees be mobilized to “provide security for our compatriots” working abroad.

A source in Chirac’s entourage also noted that the French President had requested that two high-level specialists in forensic medicine be sent to Karachi to undertake their own autopsy of the body parts of the suspected kamikaze bomber.

The same source noted that the French president had found it hard to believe that the three persons suspected of buying the automobile used in the blast, whose police sketches have been circulating in Pakistan, had not yet been found.