Wikileaks Releases Cable Showing French Concern For Kleen Energy Victims

The French Environment Minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, expressed his condolences for the loss of life in the explosion at the Kleen Energy Power plant, passing a letter on behalf of the French people to United States Ambassador to France, Charles Rivkin. This is revealed in a cable classified by the Ambassador as Confidential, but obtained by WikiLeaks and released earlier this month.

The cable was sent on February 10, 3 days after the explosion. Most of the cable discussed France's perspective on international climate negotiations, Borloo telling Rivkin that "the key to advancing climate negotiations is to drop the notion of a legally binding treaty in favor of a system of national commitments."

The last paragraph of the cable is about the Kleen Energy victims:

Borloo also passed a letter from himself, on behalf of the French people, to Secretary of Energy Chu expressing condolences for the loss of life at the Kleen Energy Power plant in Middletown, Connecticut, and expressing his wish that those injured in the explosion recover quickly. The Embassy has faxed the letter to the Department of Energy.

The paragraphs on climate negotiations are marked (C) and the paragraph on Kleen is marked (U), I hope and presume that this means the condolences paragraph was marked unclassified and shared more widely, but it is not clear why it was included in a cable which would would not become Declassified until 2019.

The full cable can be found HERE; there are several different search engines available, I typed "Middletown" into one called LeakySearch.