[2] Described as a "covert operation" by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence agency, the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), the terrorist attack was carried out on 10 July 1985.

It resulted in a scandal that led to the resignation of the French Defence Minister Charles Hernu, while the two agents pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years in prison.

France began testing nuclear weapons in 1966 on Mururoa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia.

DGSE agent Christine Cabon, who had previously worked on intelligence missions in the Middle East, posed as environmentalist "Frederique Bonlieu" to infiltrate the Greenpeace office in Auckland.

[6][7] While working for the Auckland office, Cabon secretly monitored communications from Rainbow Warrior, collected maps and investigated underwater equipment.

After sufficient information had been gathered, Camas and Kister attached two limpet mines to Rainbow Warrior berthed at Marsden Wharf.

Pereira drowned in the rapid flooding that followed, and the other ten crew members either safely abandoned ship on the order of Captain Peter Willcox or were thrown into the water by the second explosion.

They took a ferry to the South Island, went skiing at Mt Hutt, and then left the country using false documents about ten days later.

[11] France, being an ally of New Zealand, initially denied involvement and joined in condemning what it described as a terrorist act.

The "breach of international law" aspect was referred to in all communications with the United Nations to dissuade any arguments from the French government that might imply justification for their act.

[15] France launched their own commission of enquiry headed by Bernard Tricot which declared the French government innocent of any involvement in the terrorist act, claiming that the arrested agents, who had not yet pleaded guilty, had merely been spying on Greenpeace.

When The Times and Le Monde contradicted these findings by claiming that President Mitterrand had approved the bombing, Defence Minister Charles Hernu resigned and the head of the DGSE, Admiral Pierre Lacoste, was fired.

Smart Stadium, Auckland, on 5 April 1986 included performances by Herbs, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Topp Twins, Dave Dobbyn and a Split Enz reunion.

She was deemed irreparable and scuttled in Matauri Bay, near the Cavalli Islands on 12 December 1987, to serve as a dive wreck and fish sanctuary.

On 14 October 2011, Greenpeace launched a new sailing vessel, again called Rainbow Warrior, which is equipped with an auxiliary electric motor.

[31] The failure of Western leaders to condemn a violation of a friendly nation's sovereignty caused a great deal of change in New Zealand's foreign and defence policy.

[33] In June 1986, in a political deal with Prime Minister of New Zealand David Lange, presided over by United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, France agreed to pay NZ$13 million (US$6.5 million) to New Zealand and apologise, in return for which Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur would be detained at the French military base on Hao Atoll for three years.

[30] Although France had formally apologised to the New Zealand Government in 1986,[34] during a visit in April 1991, French Prime Minister Michel Rocard delivered a personal apology.

[38] In 2005, French newspaper Le Monde released a report from 1986 which said that Admiral Pierre Lacoste, head of DGSE at the time, had "personally obtained approval to sink the ship from the late president François Mitterrand.

"[39] Soon after the publication, former Admiral Lacoste came forward and gave newspaper interviews about the situation, admitting that the death weighed on his conscience and saying that the aim of the operation had not been to kill.

[8][41] A 20th anniversary memorial edition of the 1986 book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior by New Zealand author David Robie—who was aboard the bombed ship—was published in July 2005.

[42] Twenty years after the bombing, Television New Zealand (TVNZ) sought access to a video record made at the preliminary hearing in which the two French agents pleaded guilty.

On 7 August 2006, Justices Hammond, O'Regan and Arnold dismissed the former French agents' appeal and TVNZ broadcast their guilty pleas the same day.