He told Mr Babic the US could act only if the Serbs issued a five-point statement agreeing

He told Mr Babic the US could act only if the Serbs issued a five-point statement agreeing, in effect, to give in to Croatia’s key war aims. Mr Babic obliged yesterday saying he was ready to “stand down and demobilise” Krajina Serb forces and to pull them out of Bihac.The key point for Croatia was that he also agreed to negotiate a political settlement with Zagreb on the basis of the so-called “Z4 Plan”. Devised by western diplomats, this assumes Croatian sovereignty over all the disputed region. Croatia may argue that Mr Babic’s acceptance of it constitutes de facto recognition of Croatian rule.Mr Babic also accepted the deployment of UN peace-keepers along the international border between Croatia and Bosnia. He agreed to reopen a vital oil pipeline and to negotiate the reopening of rail links.Mr Babic is understood to have told Western diplomats that he will be able to convince most of his supporters that they have no alternative but to accept the US-brokered proposals.

Knin’s forces are heavily out- gunned by the Croatian army, which has bought and built tanks, helicopter gunships and heavy artillery despite the UN arms embargo.President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia is unlikely to bale out his clients militarily. Some covert Serbian aid is almost certainly reaching the Krajina Serbs but probably not on the scale that would tip the balance in their favour and scupper Mr Milosevic’s campaign to end the economic embargo on rump Yugoslavia. Many observers believe Mr Milosevic and Mr Tudjman have an understanding that Zagreb may pursue its goal of recapturing Sectors North and South if Belgrade is allowed to annex Sector East, the fertile farmland and oilfields close to the Serbian border.Mr Milosevic failed to help the Krajina Serbs in May when the Croatians seized Serb-held western Slavonia in a two-day offensive, an operation that boosted the confidence of the Croatian army and hardened Mr Tudjman’s resolve to retake Krajina. “If the rebel Serbs reject the reintegration of the occupied territories Croatia will be forced to undertake the most severe measures to prevent attacks on the Bihac ’safe area’,” Mr Tudjman said..

France yesterday mounted a fierce counter-offensive against the worldwide attacks on its decision to resume nuclear tests, announcing a series of retaliatory measures against Australia, which has spearheaded opposition in the South Pacific, and mobilising senior officials to defend French nuclear policy. The measures announced last night represent a sharp escalation of the already bitter dispute. They include a “reconsideration” of imports of Australian coal, the cancellation of contracts to buy Australian uranium “in view of Australia’s stance on nuclear affairs”, and the withdrawal of the French electricity company, EDF, from a joint project (a move that anticipates a likely Australian decision to exclude it).
A statement issued by the French foreign ministry also said that France would ask the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation to consider whether Australia’s conduct in the dispute had breached international conventions. Australia has excluded the French aerospace firm, Dassault, from bidding for a contract in Australia; the French diplomatic bag has been delayed; Australian dockers have been refusing to unload French cargo, and Australian states are being encouraged to boycott French goods – a measure that is already costing French exporters millions of francs.The lead in the French diplomatic counter-offensive was allocated to Philippe Seguin, chairman of the National Assembly, Chirac supporter and staunch upholder of the principle of national sovereignty, who led the anti-Maastricht campaign in France two years ago.Writing in the pro-Chirac newspaper, Le Figaro, yesterday, Mr Seguin said it was not a question of whether President Jacques Chirac was right or wrong in deciding to resume testing, but of his duty as president. Certainly, he said, alluding to the French opinion polls and the international boycott calls, “if he had cared only about his peace and quiet, his popularity, sales of Chanel No 5 to Japan, or deepening cultural ties with Australia, he would not have done it”.But, he said, as soon as it became apparent that the “credibility and permanence” of France’s nuclear deterrent could be affected by failure to complete the test programme (begun under President Francois Mitterrand before the moratorium), “he would have been failing in his duty if he had not taken the decision he did”.Mr Seguin said that it was the objections from France’s European partners, especially Germany, that hurt most, and argued that by defending its own sovereignty and retaining a credible deterrent, France was doing all Europe a favour.French nuclear weapons, he said, had been part of the “flexible response” strategy that had defended West Germany and Europe.

Now that Germany was united and the US was retreating into isolationism, France could “give total nuclear assurance to its principal partner and treat any violation of its territory as tantamount to an attack on its own”.Mr Seguin’s article, however, was clearly directed also at opinion within France, where polls have shown an unexpectedly high level of disapproval. Mr Chirac’s overall popularity rating dropped 10 percentage points in the month after he announced the resumption of tests and another poll this week showed that 60 per cent of those asked wanted Mr Chirac to reverse the decision, while 56 per cent thought it was “wrong”.Until yesterday there was also a conspicuous lack of public support for Mr Chirac from his government. A commentary in Le Figaro last weekend criticised ministers for their “deafening silence”, noting that there had been “no word, or almost no word” from them, “no argued explanation, no counter-offensive That is not normal”. The result, it said, was that “the head of state has been left in the front line and his argument isn’t getting through”.After that, there was a distinctly half-hearted attempt by the Environment Minister, Anne-Marie Couderc, to defend the French position.Michel Barnier, the minister for Europe, was dispatched to take the flak at this week’s Association of South East Asian Nations meeting. Yesterday he said wearily the only answer was “to explain, explain and explain again”.. Local politicians in the Dordogne may soon have to cope with a new force in French politics – the British vote, writes Mary Dejevsky. Britons resident in France should be able to vote in the next local elections under reciprocal arrangements being introduced throughout the European Union.

A draft law approved by Paris this week would give all legally resident EU citizens the right to vote in local, but not national, elections. It will go before parliament in the autumn.
There are more than 1.5 million EU citizens resident in France, many of them Britons. While the numbers of new voters are unlikely to change the overall results, concern has been expressed that in areas where foreigners are concentrated, the traditional political complexion could change.The Dordogne, in the south- west, has been cited as one such region because the indigenous population comprises mainly agricultural workers who tend to vote Socialist, while the incoming Britons, Germans and Dutch tend to be middle-class and more likely to vote for the moderate right.The proposals are likely to be controversial with groups representing the interests of France’s non-European residents and immigrants. They are not permitted to vote unless they have French citizenship. Before the last local elections, two lobby groups led a campaign for all non- French permanent residents to be given the right to vote in local elections to try to give immigrants a stake in the political system and a say in their community. Officials argued that citizenship entailed rights and duties, and the right to vote could not be granted in isolation.There had been hopes that France would introduce the provisions in time for the new EU voters to take part in this year’s local elections, but the drafting of legislation was deferred until after the presidential election, which meant that it also missed the local elections.