AMERICAN ARMS FOR FRANCE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 128, 15 March 1950, Page 3

AMERICAN ARMS FOR FRANCE

ASSEMBLY TO DEBATE AGREEMENT MORE VIOLENCE EXPECTED ‘N.Z.P.A.—Copyright) LONDON, March .14. Reuter’s Paris correspondent says that the French National Assembly will to-day begin a debate on the French-American arms agreement, which may .provoke even bloodier fights than those last week between Communists and anti-Communists. The debate will ■last two days. Though it is not compelled to do so by the Constitution, the Goverriment is asking Parliament’s approval of Atlantic Pact shipments of arms, valued roughly at £100,000,000 up to next June. The Cabinet’s reason, according to a report by the Assembly’s National Defence Commission, is “to enable the entire nation to associate itself with an .essential act of France’s foreign policy.” The Communist campaign against the pact and the unloading of- American arms is expected to reach a climax when the first ships arrive. The Government hopes that the debate will create a strong France impervious to acts from within, and confidently prepared for the future. Officials hope that the debate lind the arrival of aircraft, tanks, artillery, radar gear, and munitions of all types will form a platform from which to launch a vigorous campaign against despairing talk of inevitable invasion if there is another war. ►

The commission’s report ends: “Let us accept the hand offered-to us and let us multiply our own efforts. There lies the onlv hope for France to win the first battle of those to protect its soil, its children, and its freedom against a fresh invasion.” GREEK AND YUGOSLAV MACEDONIA , . 1 COMINFORM SAID TO PLAN INVASION LONDON, March 13. The Athens radio said to-day that at a recent meeting in Moscow of the Cominform, Russia ahd her Balkan satellites had decided to invade Greek and Yugoslav Macedonia this spring and set up a Macedonian State. The radio alleged that the plan had been drawn up by Bulgaria, and it added that large numbers of Soviet troops were being sent to Bulgaria, where additional airlfields were also being built. The radio likened the present situation in the Balkans to that in the spring of 1941 whefT Germany invaded Greece,