Japan angry over French nuclear satire

Japan has formally protested over a French newspaper cartoon depicting mutated sumo wrestlers s fighting in front of the country’s crippled nuclear power plant and linking it to Tokyo’s successful bid to host the 2020 Olympics.

By The Newsroom

Published 12th Sep 2013, 18:27 BST

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the cartoon insulted those affected by the March 2011 disaster and misrepresented conditions at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.

A Foreign Ministry official said Japan has submitted an official complaint to the weekly paper Le Canard Enchaine’s chief editor Louis Marie Horeau through its embassy in Paris. The official said the paper did not apologise, but acknowledged that Japan was upset over the cartoons.

The plant’s recent leaks of radioactive water into the Pacific have triggered international concerns.

One of the cartoons shows two sumo wrestlers facing off with the nuclear plant as spectators in hazard suits watch and another shows the the huge pool of radioactive water as an Olympic pool .

Japan Paris