DEAUVILLE (France): Dr. Henry Kissinger phoned French Foreign Minister Jean Sauvagnargues today [Aug 10] to try to cool down a controversy over a US effort to block the French sale of a nuclear reprocessing plant to Pakistan. The U.S. Secretary of State spending a day in seclusion at the estate of British banker Loel Guiness … reached M. Sauvagnargues at the small village of Gassin … and spoke to him for five or 10 minutes, U.S. officials said. They described the talk as “very friendly … and non-confrontational”. The [US] has aroused a bitter reaction in France by objecting to the French sale.
[A related report from Paris adds,] Pakistan will not give up plans for construction of a French uranium processing plant despite American objections, Pakistani Charge d’Affaires Ahmed Kamal indicated here today [Aug 10]. The U.S. has said … the agreement … might lead to further proliferation of nuclear weapons. Asked on a French radio station if the plant could be used for military ends, Mr. Kamal said all guarantees and physical inspection by the “qualified person”, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, were anticipated in the treaty Pakistan and France signed... .
Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2026
