A high school was feeling the fallout from a foreign government's decision to resume nuclear testing, The Canberra Times reported on this 26 years ago.
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A security guard had been put on duty at the French-Australian Telopea Park High School in the wake of France resuming nuclear testing in the Pacific, which had also sparked student protests and forced the principal, Gwen McNeill, to deny she had called students "racist bigots".
Some students alleged Ms McNeill made comments to year 9 students kept back after an assembly at which about 200 students had refused to stand during the French anthem.
Students, Georgia Bayin and Peter Drummey, said they were kept in after assembly and through most of recess while Ms McNeill addressed them about the protest. Ms McNeill had denied making the comments, but students at the protest demanded an apology.
"The point she tried to make was that we were being racist". A pupil said.
"But it wasn't actually about that. It was about standing up for what we believed in, as in not taking park in the French government with nuclear testing ... She made it into a big deal of being a racist".
