AMERICAN ARMS FOR FRANCE

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26025, 31 January 1950, Page 5

AMERICAN ARMS FOR FRANCE

300,000,000 DOLLARS ALLOCATED

ARMY TO RECEIVE MOST ASSISTANCE

(Bee. 11 p.m.) LONDON, January 30. “The importance of France in Western defence is indicated by the allocation to her of 300.000,000 dollars of the total of 1,000,000,000 dollars allotted to Europe under the American military assistance programme,” says The Times.” The bulk of this aid will go to the French Army. The material to be supplied will complete the armament of under-equipped units, but will not provide for the arming of fresh ones. The bulk of the supplies will go to the French land forces. Tanks, antitank guns and signals equipment will be the main items. The French Air Force will not receive fighters or bombers, but principally ground equipment or specialised apparatus. ’The Navy has been promised light and escort vessels, and is hoping, in time, for an aircraft carrier. The supply and distribution of the equipment will be supervised by the Chief of the French General Staff (General Blanc), who was in charge of the rearmament of the French forces m North Africa in 1943-44, and is therefore well acquainted with American material.

“It is a great satisfaction to the French to receive proof that the defence of the West is to be . based on Continental Europe, and that the United States is committed to it. But the arms aid agreement has not received as general a welcome as might nave been expected; its critics range from the Communists to the de Gaullists and others of the Right who seem to be crying for the moon and comP“*unng because they are not given