DEFIANT FRENCH

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

DEFIANT FRENCH

SANG MARSEILLAISE' IN

PARIS

DEMONSTRATIONS IN OTHER

CITIES

Free French sources in London said 100,000 Parisians assembled at Place de l'Opera and defiantly sang the Marseillaise under the windows of the German commandant's head- i quarters on June 11, Joan of Arc feast day, says the Christian Science Monitor. In occupied Bordeaux another 100,000 Frenchmen marched in a body, the same sources said, to the City Hall and there placed a letter of protest on ,the desk of the Mayor, M. Marquet. The letter was said to have objected to M. Marquet's activities in behalf of collaboration with the Germans. Other pro-Ally demonstrations such as at Nantes where 80,000 cheered and sang the "Marseillaise,", were declared the direct result of Gen. Charles de Gaulle's radiocast to all French to unite that day in the cause of liberation.

In Nantes, it was added, the demonstrators decorated the graves of British airmen with flowers, and on the Riviera the Tricolour and Union Jack were hung side by side while passing Italians hissed and were hissed in return. In Paris, Free French reports said, German soldiers made a futile effort to disperse the assembly and prevent it from reaching the Joan of Arc statue in Rue de Rivoli, and attempted to hush shouts of "Vive de Gaulle" and "Vive Angleterre" (England). But, it was claimed, the surge of the crowds was so strong that they marched^ to the Arc- de Triomphe, where the unknown soldier is buried, and demonstrated.