Why France Agreed To Cease Fire

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28157, 21 December 1956, Page 13

Why France Agreed To Cease Fire

(N.Z. Press Association—Cupyrtgtitt (Rec. 8 p.m.) PARIS, December 19. The French Foreign Minister, Mr Christian Pineau, told the French National Assembly today that it was morally and materially impossible for France not to join Britain in the cease fire in Egypt. The reasons why this was so were, he said, the division of British Parliamentary and public opinion, American pressure, the attitude of the United Nations, and Soviet threats. “This Soviet threat had only a limited military bearing for, short of an atomic bombardment of Cyprus and Te Aviv, it was impossible to prevent French and British forces from occupying the entire canal zone in two or three days,” he said. In what was apparently a reference to Mr Aneurin Bevan’s question whether “Marianne” (France) had seduced “John Bull” (Britain), Mr Pineau said: “Marianne did not try to drag John Bull on the road to perdition. It was simply a question of carrying out a common policy.”

Mr Pineau said in his opinion Egyptian sabotage of the Suez Canal was inevitable, even without the French and British intervention in Egypt. Referring to the delay between the bombing of targets in Egypt and the French and British landing, Mr Pineau said that one of the reasons for this was the need to change plans because the intervention plan did not take Israel’s action into account.

This answered the argument of collusion between the French and British forces and Israel, he said. Britain and France had anticipated what they would do if Israel attacked Egypt, said Mr Pineau, according to an American Associated Press report. “When that happened, Britain and France wanted to protect the canal from the sabotage which Colonel Nasser would not have failed to order, in case the Israelis tried to cross the canal.” t The pressure on Sir Anthony Eden was the main reason why Britain and France had agreed to the cease fire. He described the cease nre as premature.

Irish Border Arrests BELFAST. December 19. Security forces on both sides of the Irish border today stepped up their efforts to prevent further raids by the outlawed Irish Republican Army. Eire police arrested eight young men in a house near the border and brought them to the Dundalk police station for questioning. The men were seized near the remains of a border post blown up recently. Onlv one man has so far been detained under the emergency powers which the Northern Ireland Government has assumed to give police the power to arrest and search without warrant.

A British military spokesman said today that a curfew will be imoosed along the uneasy border immediately there is any further trouble. Uncontrolled frontier roads leading to the border will be permanently blocked.

Influenza in Japan.— The Japanese Welfare Ministry announced today that 150.000 school children in 36 of Japan’s 46 prefectures had been stricken with influenza. About 150,000 adults are stricken in Tokyo, but no deaths have been reported.— Tokyo. December 20.