FRENCH PEOPLE PRO-BRITISH

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXII, Issue 76, 23 September 1941, Page 3

FRENCH PEOPLE PRO-BRITISH

"My daughter and I returned recently from the South of France— we were there from the beginning of April, 1940, .to February 18 of this year. We .talked to all and sundry, to the peasants on the hills, to the little shopkeepers, soldiers, porters on the railway—and everywhere we were assured that 90 per

cent of the people were pro-British, looking only to England and a British victory to save them. They hated Laval and the politicians generally. The day Darlan was appointed Petain's successor and righthand man Cannes was like a city in mourning—knots of people in the streets discussing it, and gloom everywhere. They distrusted him, arid before we left Lisbon in March we heard that German 'tourists,' with passports signed by Darlan, were pouring across to Algeria from Marseilles. Wandering about in the hills, my daughter found in talking to the peasants that directly they knew she was British they opened their hearts _ .to her. More than one soldier said after the armistice: ''It makes one ashamed to be a Frenchman.' " —J. E. Bundock, in a letter to the "Sydney Morning Herald."