FORGET about Australia’s diplomatic crisis with France after the federal government dumped a $90 billion submarine contract with Paris in 2021.
In 1995 our relationship with the French could have rock-bottomed a lot more if three blokes from Berry’s Great Southern Hotel were successful in delivering a letter to ban president Jacques Chirac from their NSW South Coast pub!
At the time, under NSW law, to ban someone from a hotel a letter had to be hand delivered, according to the following story published published in the Canberra Times.
The October 25 1995 newspaper story told how three men bulldozed their way through the front gates of the embassy in Canberra in an effort to deliver the letter in protest to France’s controversial nuclear testing in the Pacific.
Danny Thompson, whose father was the publican, said that if Chirac had entered their pub he would have been evicted on the spot – reportedly “the greatest Aussie insult”.
Roo and rocket deliver Chirac’s ban from pub
By Peter Clack, and AAP
Three anti-nuclear protesters bulldozed their way through the front gates of the French Embassy yesterday to deliver a letter to French President Jacques Chirac banning him from their pub in Berry.
The three face trespassing charges after driving through a plastic mesh barrier on to embassy grounds — where they displayed a large stuffed kangaroo wearing a gas mask and sitting on a mock rocket.
The men said an arrangement had been made by the Member for Gilmore, Peter Knott (Lab), for them to see Ambassador Dominique Girard. Mr Knott said later that under NSW law, to ban someone from a hotel a letter must be hand delivered. He said banning someone from the pub was the greatest Aussie insult.
The driver of the car, Danny Thompson, whose father is publican of The Great Southern Hotel in Berry, said that if Mr Chirac entered the hotel he would be evicted.
“If this [letter] was given to Jacques Chirac and then he came back to the hotel after he know’s he’s barred, he would be trespassing,” he said.
Mr Thompson said he felt the Australian Government was not doing enough to protest against the French testing.
He would not ban other French people from the hotel but urged Australians to continue to protest.
Mr Knott said later that he had gone to meet the boys “but they decided to go in a head of me — with spectacular results”.
Police said the matter was being investigated.
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