Paris, 11/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - Last Friday, Jacques Chirac said, in a speech made at the Institute for higher studies on national defence, that he has the intention of proposing, during the Gothenburg European Council, that the EU take the initiative of call an international conference renewing the efforts for the non-proliferation of ballistic weapons. In his speech that reflects a reconciliation of American positions on the establishment of an antimissile shield, the President of the French Republic asserts: We do not deny the dangers of ballistic proliferation, while having a different analysis of the scope of the threat and its development. Mrs Chirac recognises that the dangers associated to proliferation take on a different dimension when they have the destructive effect of arms of mass destruction with the means to be propelled over long distances, and warns the regional powers doted with arms of mass destruction that, if they where filled with hostile intentions against us, they should know that they would expose themselves to absolutely unacceptable damage. At the same time, President Chirac reaffirms that our security will above all be guaranteed by nuclear dissuasion, and that France wants to respect the ABM Treaty.