STRUGGLE IN INDO-CHINA

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25084, 16 January 1947, Page 7

STRUGGLE IN INDO-CHINA

LITTLE HOPE SEEN OF EARLY ARMISTICE FRENCH POSTS ROUND HANOI ATTACKED LONDON, January 14. “There is apparently little hope of an early armistice between the French and the Viet Nam Nationalists,” says Reuter’s correspondent in Hanoi. “Responsible French and Viet Nam officials believe that the country faces a prolonged period of bloodshed before negotiations for a peaceful settlement can be resumed. “Launching the strongest assaults for some days, Viet Nam forces, some of which were 100 strong, simultaneously attacked French posts round Hanoi’s Chinese quarter, in which 10,000 Chinese civilians are living, and in which a Viet Nam force is trapped. Seventy-five millimetre field guns, at the same time, fired 80 shells into scattered parts of Hanoi." French Spitfires strafed the Hanoi airport before armoured jeeps and half-tracks went into action in what is described as a completely successful mopping up operation, says a dispatch received by the French Press Agency.

Viet Nam forces at Langson are reported to be moving up heavy reinforcements. It is also believed that Viet Nam troop movements are going on around Namdinh. The Viet Nam radio claimed that the French had landed at Tourance, halfway down Indo-China’s eastern coastline, and were fighting northward along the highway, in an effort to relieve the siege of the French garrison at Hue, 600 miles by road from TourThe French General Staff Headquarters at Saigon has announced that French troops repulsed Viet Nam attacks with serious losses and cap- : tured important quantities of war material during operations at the Gialam airport. French troops also captured two heavily-fortified villages southwest of Haidoung, 30 miles east of Hanoi on the main railway to Haiphong. French aircraft destroyed two Viet Nam grenade factories and a large shed containing war material at unnamed places. Right wing deputies and several Radicals walked out of the French Assembly Chamber when the oldest deputy, Mr Marcel Cachin aged 74, who was presiding, used his opening speech to propose that negotiations with the Viet Nam should be resumed. Mr Cachin said that French workers considered it dangerous to undertake another colonial war. Violent protests from the Conservative M.R.P. and Radical benches greeted the statement.