LETTER TO LAVAL AND RETAIN

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23740, 11 September 1942, Page 5

LETTER TO LAVAL AND RETAIN

PROTEST AGAINST VICHY POLICY LONDON,'Sept. 9. M. Edouard Herriot, President of the French Chamber of Deputies, and M. Jules Jeanneney. President of the Senate, have sent a joint letter to Marshal Petain and M, Laval accusing Marshal Petain of assuming an unlimited dictatorship, says the correspondent of the British United Press on the French frontier. The letter said: “Without the authority of Parliament you are trying to draw France into the war against our Allies, which, as you yourself declared, honour forbids. We. by this letter, protest in advance in the name of our national sovereignty. Our country will not follow you along the path you •re trying to take.” Deputies from Alsace-Lorraine met secretly in Vichy and decided to protest to Marshal Petain and Laval against the conscription of residents of Alsace-Lorraine into the German army and Labour Corps. Germans in occupied France have ordered the drafting to Germany of anyone unemployed. The British United Press says that to replace Axis shipping which has been lost, principally in the Mediterranean, the Nazi Minister in Paris (Abetz) has s demanded from Vichy 200.000 tons of shipping, including 10.000 tons which belonged to Belghun, Holland, Greece, and Jugoslavia. The Vichy authorities, it is believed, have not yet acceded to the demand, arguing that the armistice does not cover such action. The Vichy correspondent of the Zurich newspaper “National Zeitung” reports that the arrests and deportations of immigrant Jews in France are hot only continuing, but are being intensified. Some categories of foreign «*ws who were still exempt in the first naif of August are now being deported, including children. Heart-rending acenes are occurring.