FRENCH CALL FOR PEACE TALKS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27040, 15 May 1953, Page 9

FRENCH CALL FOR PEACE TALKS

Cabinet Discusses Churchill Speech

(NX. Prtts Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) PARIS, May 13. The powerful Foreign Affairs Commission of Parliament has called on the French Government to summon a Big Power conference on world problems “on the. highest level."

At the same time the commission postponed indefinitely consideration of the six-nation European Army Pact, which te, aimed at bringing German troops into the Allied defence force. The French Government, however, is not planning immediate action on the commission’s cdll for a conference. Instead, it will seek clarification of what Sir Winston Churchill meant when he said that any Great Power conference should be confined to the smallest number of Powers. > The Government will insist that French participation at such a meeting is essential. A Cabinet meeting, under the President <Mr Vincent Auriol) today discussed the speech at length. The Ministers are reported to be £»vely P’rturbed by Sir Winston Churchill’s statement that a conference of Big Powers should be confined to the smallest number of Powers and persons possible. This implied, in the French view, that he was considering a Big Power meeting without France. Another point in the speech which caused dissatisfaction during the Cabinet discussions was his criticism of the 18-month period of French Sir Winston Churchill said that if France, had the same military system as Britain—two years’ compulsory service—they would have had much lew difficulty in maintaining thefr positions in Indo-China. Bu.B8 u . 8^ f ® cloM , to the Government said that France had more men under arms tiian Britain-905,495 men at the end of