13 Sep 2006

Bomb threat phoned to French Polynesian assembly

3:35 pm on 13 September 2006

There has been bomb threat to the French Polynesian assembly.

The news agency Tahitipresse says an anonymous caller warned the assembly in Tahitian that he would place a bomb.

Police and firefighters arrived at the assembly building but staff in the premises were not evacuated while an assembly committee continued its work.

A French high commission official says it was decided to let work continue as not go give in to panic.

A formal complaint is to be lodged in a bid to catch the caller.

The call was made shortly after a court ordered former members of the GIP intervention force who had lost their job to end their occupation of the administrative flotilla's headquarters in the port of Papeete.

However, there is no proof of a link between the threat and the court decision.

Before the ruling was made, one union with links to the former GIP employees vowed to ignore the court and block the city of Papeete.