Why Recognise Vichy?

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23401, 7 August 1941, Page 6

Why Recognise Vichy?

The United States Government has announced that its relations with the Vichy Government are now on a day-to-day basis, which means (to judge from an explanatory statement by Mr Sumner Welles) that the United States will continue to recognise Vichy for just so long as it shows a will to defend its colonial territories and to withhold from Germany the more direct forms of military aid. It seems clear, however, that the time is rapidly approaching when the democracies will have to consider their relations with Vichy much, more realistically than they have in the past. Both the British and the United States Governments have from time to time accused Vichy of going far beyond the terms of the armistice agreement in its dealings with Germany and of desiring and. actively working for a German victory. The most recent list of official British accusations, issued at the end of May, is an oppressive, one. It is stated that the lower reaches of the Rhone sire being used for passing German E-boats into the Mediterranean, that one-quarter of .the mechanical and electrical industries in unoccupied France have been working for Germany for months, that French firms are repairing German submarines and tanks, that since April 5 the French motor industry has been making aircraft, engines, guns, and tanks for Germany, that 20 firms are making munitions Ibr Germany, that 80 per cent, of all cargoes arriving at-Marseilles'have gone to the Axis Powers, and that in six weeks unoccupied France had sent to Germany 38,000 tons of bauxite, .10,000 tons of aluminium, 8000 tons of magnesium, and 30,000 tons of wool. In addition, the inability or unwillingness of Vichy to defend its colonial empire (except against Great Britain) has been demonstrated, in Syria and. Indo-China and is how being demonstrajed at every strategic point in French Africa. It is natural to ask why, if the British and American Governments are in possession of such facts, they continue not merely to recognise Vichy as the Government of France, but also, in the case of Great Britain, to relax the blockade in Vichy’s favour, and, in the case of the United States, to maintain normal trade relations with French Africa. The arguments advanced in justification of such a course are varied. In British semiofficial statements it Is argued that in order to keep Spain out of the war it is essential that unoccupied France should remain as a buffer between Spain and the Axis armies. The answer to this seems to be that already, in spite of the existence of the so-called buffer, Germany has managed to.'get several divisions into Spain. It is also argued that Marshal Retain Is still an honest mail, that he still has the confidence of the French people, and that his position would become untenable if recognition were withdrawn from the Vichy Govera-

ment. The answei’ seems to be that, whatever Marshal Petain’s inclinations may be, "he is powerless and that whatever the French people think of him, they are overwhelmingly hostile to Vichy. Indeed, it may be suspected that Germany is on the whole well satisfied that Marshal Petain’s prestige should be a cloak for the tortuous policies of his colleagues. The American argument for continuing to recognise Vichy is that the American Embassy in Vichy is a valuable listening post for the democracies; and it can be admitted that the argument carries some weight. On balance, however, the arguments against recognition and in favour of treating the whole of France as an occupied country—which in effect it is—seem overwhelming. Every reputable observer who has been to unoccupied France within the last year or so has emphasised one fact which is now beyond question: nothing that the democracies can do at present is likely to have any real influence over Vichy’s policy. If to-day the Vichy Government still has a semblance of independence and does not have a German army of occupation within its territory, that is because it suits the German Government that it should be so. By occupying the rest of France, Germany would close the biggest leak in the blockade and would add to her already substantial difficulties in holding down Europe’s conquered peoples. If reports of anti-German and anti-Vichy feeling in unoccupied France are even partly true, then the best course for the democracies is to cease to recognise Vichy and to accord full recognition to General de Gaulle’s Free French Movement. General de Gaulle has shown himself to be a brave and able man and has now sizeable fighting forces under his command. At the head of a provisional French Government, with the promise of supplies under the Lease-Lend Act, he would have a far better chance of capitalising on the reviving morale and will to resistance of the French nation.