DRIVE AGAINST REDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 35, 10 February 1940, Page 11

DRIVE AGAINST REDS

ARRESTS BY POLICE

EFFORTS TO RECONSTRUCT COMMUNIST PARTY

(Daventry Broadcast.)

LONDON, Friday Night.

The secret session of the French Chamber of Deputies which began this morning is still at work. This morning's session was suspended just before 1 p.m., and the Chamber reassembled at 3.30 p.m.

The vote in favour of the secret mission came as something of a surprise. It was the first meeting in camera for 20 years.

Although the main Conservative group as well as the Socialists voted for the session, M. Daladier's Cabinet is in no way imperilled, as no. question of confidence is involved. In moving in order to discuss the war, M. Blum made it clear that he was not speaking in any defiant spirit.

Eleven members of the Communist Party, refused to take part in the secret session, so that they could not be accused of giving away information if anything leaked out.

The activities, of the Gestapo, to which M. Daladier referred, is discussed in the Paris Press. They are directed mostly at attempts to split French and British opinion. The newspaper "Oeuvre" gives examples of these attempts, and says that a number of letters have been posted in France stating that the French are dying for England because the English do not fight wars themselves.

The police are making a new drive against Communists, and in the last twenty-four hours arrested 23 people. They are alleged to have been holding secret meetings for the reconstruction of the Communist Party in France.