TURNED DOWN BY PETAIN

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 127, 22 February 1941, Page 12

TURNED DOWN BY PETAIN

Request By Mussolini WAY OF ESCAPE FOR ITALIANS

(Uy Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, February 20.

The first mention from Vichy of the recent meetings between General Franco, Signor Mussolini, and Marshal Petain is made in an agency report passed by the Vichy censor. This message says that Marshal Petain refused a request by Signor Mussolini that Italian troops in Libya should be allowed to use Tunisia as a way of escape.

It is reported that a request was made to General Franco to permit the troops in Libya to go to Spanish Morocco if the British pushed them out of Libya. As that would mean that the Italians would have to pass through Tunisia, Marshal Petain’s permission was sought. lie is said to have refused, on the ground that under international law the defeated French would be obliged Io disarm their conquerors. "The French navy finds itself on the point of fighting against England,” writes M. Doriot in the Paris newspaper "Cri du People.”.

The Germans are reported to be exerting pressure on the French to convoy food from North Africa to France, in the hope of producing an open conflict with the British in the Mediterranean.