Yachting - Greenpeace disrupt France's America's Cup launch
Date: 20-May-02
Country: FRANCE
Author: Isabelle Musy
About 15 protestors, paddling in kayaks, disrupted the ceremony by scaling walls surrounding the compound and hung a banner condemning the syndicate's main sponsor, state owned-nuclear energy services group Areva.
Areva is a congolomeration of COGEMA, Framatome ANP and FCI who became the challenge's title sponsor in January.
The protest delayed the christening ceremony for the new boat. It also prevented the 600 guests, including New Zealand's ambassador to France, from witnessing the christening.
Most of the guests were still inside the compund, unaware of the protest, when film director Claude Lelouch and singer Patricia Kaas, smashed the ceremonial bottle of champagne across the bow.
Only a few memebrs of the French team, a photographer and two television crews witnessed the ceremony. The invited guests were shown television footage of the event about 30 minutes later.
"The christening ceremony did not happen as planned because of the presence of ecological demonstrators on the water," explained Luc Gellusseau, the sydnicate's technical director.
"We did not want to take any risk for the boat with many uncontrolled Greenpeace boats out there."
The bright-yellow boat, FRA69, was removed from the dock where the ceremony took place, once the protestors had left.
Gellusseau said he was disappointed the boat had not been able to be unveiled as planned.
"We do respect Greenpeace. But we also respect our sponsor Areva. I think nuclear power is something that should be used cleverly," added Gellusseau.
"We're here to build a strong team for the America's Cup and we try to focus on that.
"In New-Zealand so far, we have been warmly welcomed. We hope things will go well there."
The America's Cup challenger series begins in Auckland in October with the winners of the Louis Vuitton Cup challenging the holders, Team New Zealand, in a best-of-nine finals next February.