CHIRAC TO PUSH FOR WORLD BAN ON CLONING

April 29, 1997

PARIS -- French President Jacques Chirac said on Tuesday that he would push for a world-wide ban on human cloning -- a sci-fi fantasy brought close to reality this year when geneticists in Scotland cloned an adult sheep.

"Even if cloning is clearly banned in France, the key problem is outlawing it around the world," Chirac said after meeting a panel of ethics experts because of what he called "fears" and "fantasies" about cloning raised by Dolly the ewe.

"The real immediate challenge is an international one," he said, adding he would seek action by groups including the United Nations, the European Union and the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations.

France's National Consultative Committee on Ethics handed him a report on Tuesday reviewing French laws to try to ensure that the British breakthrough of creating a successful clone of an adult sheep would not lead to human clones.

Chirac said he agreed with the report that the United Nations was "the natural framework for a universal action," especially via the World Health Organization or UNESCO.

"Our action cannot be limited to Europe if it wants to lead towards a world-wide ban of this practice," he said.

Chirac said he would also ask European Union leaders to adopt a declaration banning human cloning at a summit in the Netherlands in June, and would bring up the issue at a summit of leading industrial nations in the United States, also in June.

Chirac also suggested a ban should be written into conventions by the 40-nation Council of Europe, which seeks to promote democracy and human rights. France will be president of the Council's committee of ministers from May 6.

Many scientists say a ban may be unenforceable. Some say that a blanket ban on cloning may jeopardize cloning-related cellular research that could produce treatments for cancers or genetic diseases.

Chirac said French law "clearly bans any possibility of cloning a human being" but he said that he wanted parliament to discuss whether a ban on human cloning should be explicitly written into law.

France's 1994 laws ban experiments on human embryos and conception of embryos for research, but do not explicitly mention cloning.