eported

issile Base Or Mangareva eported

pumea newspapers published an fficial report from Tahiti in f ust that France might establish issile-launching base on the island Mangareva in the Gambier archi \go of French Polynesia. The re- I said 2,000 technicians from nee would man the base.

IE publication of the report fol [lowed a story in the Noumea bi ithly paper Corail, quoting the ich newspaper Le Monde, that French Government was consider ate possibility of establishing an aic testing site in the Pacific, he French Minister for the Army, Messmer, was reported to have I the Assembly Nationale early illy that several plans were being ied for atomic tests “of which [is the installation of a base in

[Pacific.”

pcording to PlM’s Noumea cor pndent, Corail’s editor has been [unofficially that a mystery mis |which visited New Caledonia in ch in a French service Constella [ was investigating possible mis

punching sites.

rom time to time in the last two s, there have been reports from piea that France was considering fe the Pacific for atomic tests, j the Tahiti report about Man ya should prove correct, it will j into the limelight one of the bknown island groups in the

p Pacific.

he Gambier archipelago, of which Kareva is the main island, is it 1,000 miles south-east of iti. Beyond it to the Antarctic b is nothing but empty sea, dee noted for its pearls, the group 5w seldom visited except by occa al copra schooners. Its chief n to fame is that it was the first e in the South Pacific on which lan Catholic missionaries gained othold. That was in 1834 when population was between 5,000 and 00. pwadays, the population of the Ip is about 600. But in the vil f of Rikitea, the main settlement Mangareva, there is a cathedral ible of seating 1,200 people, he cathedral was built with ve labour by the first Roman bolic missionaries, whom many ers have blamed for the big de ise in the population. These ers allege that the missionaries 5d the natives with overwork.