B.B.C. ’s Interview With Bidault Raising Storm

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30073, 6 March 1963, Page 13

B.B.C. ’s Interview With Bidault Raising Storm

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, March 5. British and French newspapers today forecast more friction between Britain and France because of last night’s 8.8. C. filmed television interview with the former French Prime Minister, Mr Georges Bidault.

Mr Bidault is the self-styled leader of the Committee of National Resistance, which is identified in Paris with the aim of assassinating President de Gaulle and taking over France. In the interview—shown in the 8.8. G. programme, “Panorama”—Mr Bidault claimed he could rally sufficient support to overthrow President de Gaulle.

Sources close to the French Prime Minister’s office said last night they found it difficult to believe the 8.8. C. had broadcast the interview without consulting the British Government.

France’s popular commercial radio station, Europe No. 1, quoted French official “surprise” that the 8.8. C. carried the interview. The station's news commentator said: “After the Brussels breakdown perhaps the British are not displeased to be a little disagreeable with the French.” A commentator on French State Radio said: “I will not tell you anything of the contents of the interview. We are not giving any publicity to the O-A.S.”

In London the diplomatic correspondent of “The Times” wrote: “First reactions in London to the intention to broadcast the interview had been that it would exacerbate French feeling. “However, the interview and comment left no doubt that the 8.8. C. regarded Mr Bidault as fighting a lost cause and that he was ‘a lonely old man,’ flitting from country to country.”

The “Daily Express” claimed in a front-page report that “a new shadow fell on British-French relations last night.” It said the showing of the Bidault interview “threatened to impose another strain on Anglo-French ties only three weeks after Princess Margaret’s private visit to Paris was called off on the Prime Minister’s instructions.”

The diplomatic correspondent of the “Daily Herald” said: '“lt is certain that some form of protest will be made by the French.”

"Biggest Snub” The “Daily Mail’s” diplomatic correspondent commented: “The five-minute interview is bound to be taken in France as the biggest British snub since the breakdown of the Common Market talks. Despite official silence

it was known that Mr Bidault, 63-year-old head of the antide Gaulle movement, was in London in mid-Jahuary.” The “Daily Telegraph” said Mr Bidault’s appearance in “Panorama” was expected to cause further strain to British-French relations. The French Foreign Ministry had expressed “indignation,” it reported. The interview was filmed a few weeks ago “somewhere in west Landon.” “Panorama” had an estimated audience of approximately 10,000,000. The 8.8. C. last night would not give precise details about how the interview was arranged. It did not know where Mr Bidault was now. A French warrant is out for the arrest of Mr Bidault for alleged activities aimed against the security of the State.

The “Daily Sketch” said the 8.8. C. had admitted putting out feelers for Mr Bidault when it heard he might be in Britain. The newspaper quoted Paul Fox, who is editor of “Panorama,” as refusing to say whether the 8.8. C. paid Mr Bidault for the interview. Text of Interview

The interviewer, Roderick Macfarquhar, asked Mr Bidault: “Do you feel that you can get enough support to overthrow his (de Gaulle’s) Government?”

“Certainly. First of all political strategy is based, among other things, upon the mistakes by your opponents, and his mistakes are striking,” Mir Bidault said.

Asked how he expected to get his supporters mobilised, Mir Bidault said: “By such means as are left to us by the dictatorial regime. That is to say, underground publications such as those I produced more than 20 years

ago on behalf of Free France.” Asked if the Council of National Resistance sanctioned terrorism, he said: “For three years I was regarded as a terrorist by the Vichy regime and I must say it was much tougher and more difficult than the position today.

“Such accusations are not serious when most of what are called ‘violent outrages’ are really police fabrications. As far as I am concerned, I expect the good sense of the French people will tell them that they are being duped.” The interviewer recalled that the military tribunal of the Council of National Resistance had passed sentence of death on General de Gaulle last October as a traitor. Mr Bidault replied “That is what the French Government are saying and it is just one more lie.”

Asked if he contemplated “no terrorism at all,” Mr Bidault said; “It is impossible to give an answer now any more than it was 20 years ago.

“As to what desperate men may do, the declaration of the rights of man states that in case of tyranny the final resort is the duty to revolt. I believe it is a matter for wisdom. I am not in a position to know what the French are thinking or to answer to every individual.”

He said it was a professional secret how he managed to keep his organisation going from abroad and also where he got his funds. Macfarquhar asked: “The French police seem to suggest that they have destroyed ■the O.A.S. organisation pretty well in France. Is this true?”

Mr Bidault “The police always say O.A.S. to avoid saying C.N.R. because this embarrasses them. They belittle

and seek fo destroy it. I heard all that 20 years ago —exactly the same thing.” So the organisation in France is still very strong? —lt exists and we can rely on General de Gaulle to turn the blood of martyrs into the seeds of fighters. Mr Bidault, do you really think that you have any chance of overthrowing General de Gaulle?—l think our chance is better than the Chance of Churchill in 1940.

Mr Bidault who had previously spoken in French, answered this last question in English. At the end of the interview, Macfarquhar commented that Mr Bidault was “living in the past.” He was “a lonely old man.”

It was doubtful whether Mr Bidault had much support in France itself, he said. It appeared that the one chance the Bidault organisation had was through the use of “terrorist methods.”

If Mr Bidault managed to gain power, Macfarquhar said, the new regime could be “very dangerously Fascist” in practice, however liberal in theory. A 8.8. C. spokesman said last night that after the interview had been recorded. Mr Bidault and Mr Macfarquhar went for a drink in a Chiswick, west London, hotel.

Then Mr Macfarquhar had taken him to a Chinese restaurant in Knightsbridge, a fashionable district in central London. After a meal, he had left Mr Bidault there, the 8.8. C. said. A British Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday that ‘‘some months ago” the French Government had given the British authorities "the names of certain persons, including Mr Bidault, engaged in anti-State activities. We took note of this communication.”

He declined to say what action the French Government had asked Britain to take about the list of names.

In Paris, the newspaper “Liberation” commented on the interview: "It’s a bit too much.” It said the British did not realise that a new Fascist Government as sought by Mr Bidault would not make for good relations between France and Britain.

"L’Aurore” described the interview as a bad joke.