Pacific

Temaru calls for rally against French 'denial of justice'

11:07 am on 30 October 2018

French Polynesia's pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru has called for a rally on Saturday to demonstrate against what he calls France's denial of justice.

Oscar Temaru Photo: RNZI/Monica Miller

Mr Temaru said he was declared ineligible for his assembly seat for a year because French politicians interfered in the judiciary.

He said the court experts cleared him of wrongdoing with his election campaign returns yet the court ruled his offending warranted that he be removed from his seat.

Mr Temaru has said the decision was made because he had referred all living French presidents to the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity over France's nuclear weapons tests.

Speaking on local television, Mr Temaru alleged that with the ruling against him France was becoming a banana republic.

He also pointed to last week's decision of the French court of revision to quash the 1959 conviction of the pro-independence leader Pouvanaa a Oopa who had been jailed and exiled.

He said colonial justice meant that it took almost 60 years to exonerate Pouvanaa.

Mr Temaru has appealed to all political parties, churches, unions and the public to join Saturday's demonstration.