French President Francois Mitterrand gave green light to bombing – Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History

The Rainbow Warrior was towed to Matauri Bay, Northland, where it was scuppered and became a dive site. Photo / NZME

The six-part podcast series Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History tells the full story of how and why French spies bombed a Greenpeace protest ship in Auckland Harbour 40 years ago. In the final episode, hosts John Daniell and Noelle McCarthy examine who was really to blame.

French President Francois Mitterrand signed off on the Rainbow Warrior bombing and lied afterwards to save his job, claims one of France’s top investigative journalists.

Edwy Plenel, the journalist from Le Monde who broke the story of the team that planted the bombs on the Rainbow Warrior, told us on the final episode of Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History that Mitterrand’s responsibility had become increasingly evident over the years as new information had come to light.

The President ordered an inquiry into the 1985 bombing, promising the New Zealand Government he would get to the bottom of the story and punish whoever was responsible.

But the inquiry was a whitewash and Mitterrand continued to deny French responsibility and shut down any attempt to reveal where the orders had come from, Plenel said.

“He was lying because he was involved.”

Over the course of the series we’ve heard from three key French witnesses about Mitterrand’s level of responsibility in the bombing of the Greenpeace boat in Auckland Harbour 40 years ago.

Colonel Jean-Luc Kister, the man who placed the bombs on the hull of the boat and who would go on to lead the combat dive unit, said Mitterrand would have had to sign off on the operation.

“Francois Mitterrand, yes, it’s clear that such a clandestine operation at that level, they request all the time the green fire from the President.”

(Kister’s phrase “green fire” – a direct translation of the French “feu vert” - means the green light.)

Kister said Mitterrand would have had to go if it was proven he knew about the operation.

Hubert Vedrine, the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, who for decades was one of Mitterrand’s closest confidants, says the French President told him face-to-face that he had “confirmed the instructions” his Minister of Defence had given to the DGSE, the French spy service.

However, Vedrine maintained that those instructions were simply to “neutralise” the zone around the French nuclear testing site at Mururoa and to continue the tests. From there, it was up to the defence ministry and the spy service to put those instructions into action.

He said there was a big gap between Mitterrand’s instructions and what happened.

But Vedrine – who, in one form or another has advised every French president over the past five decades – said in another context that he was “not 100% for transparency”.

He was speaking in relation to former French President Francois Hollande’s acknowledgement that he had ordered the assassinations of French citizens who had joined Isis – another off-the-books operation by France, shrouded in state secrecy.

Plenel said Defence Minister Charles Hernu and DGSE boss Admiral Pierre Lacoste were forced out of their jobs after the French Government admitted that the Rainbow Warrior bombers were following orders.

But the parliamentary inquiry that was promised never eventuated as it would have been too dangerous for Mitterrand.

While France paid compensation to the family of Fernando Pereira, Greenpeace and the New Zealand Government, Mitterrand remained in power for another 10 years.

He died a year later in 1996 from prostate cancer – an illness he had concealed from the French public throughout his presidency.

Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History is a six-episode true crime series. Follow the series on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released on Thursdays.

The series is hosted and produced by John Daniell and Noelle McCarthy of Bird of Paradise Productions in co-production with the NZ Herald.

Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History is supported by New Zealand on Air.