Chatsworth : Activist Takes Aim at French Nuclear Tests

She started small, she admits--a 1973 protest against the high cost of meat. Since then, she’s fought issues ranging from dairy price controls to unethical advertising.

Today, Arline Mathews has set her sights on the largest target to date: France. The Chatsworth resident is urging an international boycott of all things French to persuade the country to halt a series of nuclear tests in the South Pacific, which began this week.

“I think when you affect people’s pocketbooks they suddenly take an interest,” she said. “You can have a very, very profound effect.”

Despite an international chorus of protests, France detonated the first of six to eight underground blasts Tuesday in a tunnel beneath Mururoa Atoll, an explosion slightly greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima 50 years ago.

For Mathews, the cause is a personal one. Her 2-year-old grandson has leukemia and she is mindful of the physiological and ecological damage nuclear fallout can cause.

“I said, ‘OK, Mikey, this one’s for you.’ ”

If the tests continue, she vowed Wednesday to keep up the boycott for an additional year as a punishment--and a deterrent.

“I think you have to live while you’re alive,” she explained of her passion for activism. “Your life should be filled with a lot of interesting things.”

She announced the boycott outside Los Angeles’ French consulate on Aug. 19, prompting a quick form-letter reply from Ambassador Jacques Andreani.

“We understand the emotions that exist on this important and sensitive subject,” Andreani wrote. “We are ready to debate this issue in a constructive sprit.”

As far as Mathews is concerned, when it comes to nuclear weapons there’s nothing to debate.

“We don’t have a Cold War,” she said. “Who do they plan on using them on?”

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