Evening Post MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1941. HITLER'S DOUBLE POLICY IN FRANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 28, 3 February 1941, Page 6

Evening Post MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1941. HITLER'S DOUBLE POLICY IN FRANCE

Two new Hitler moves are reported from France. One is a threatening Note to the Petain Government at Vichy, and the other move is an attempt to undermine the Petain Government by raising, in Paris, the flag of anew party, variously called the People's Committee and the Popular Front. No official statement of the contents of the Note, or of the programme of. the new party, has been made at time of writing; but there can be no doubt whatever that the latter is an attempt to Nazify the French people, and the former is a renewed effort to intimidate their Government. Marshal Petain's resistance to German demands aimed at Germanisation of the French.fleet and of French Africa has now become a serial story in /a subdued strain. Ijlitler barely subdues his desire to end it by violent measures; and his resurrection of the name Popular Front, as an alternative to direct German action against France, seems to he a very paltry alternative. The so-called Popular Front bears the Nazi brand so plainly that it cannot be regarded by any sensible Frenchman as being anything else than a popular insult; insult added to injury. Sooner or later Hitler must use some more powerful weapon than a new Nazi-planted popular party. But Hitler has to reckon not only with Marshal Petain at short range, but with General Weygand at long range. Pari? and Vichy are beneath Hitler's paw, but the Weygand Administration in North Africa is capable of automatic action should'its loyalty to the Petain Government be "ended by 'that Govern-j ' ■ i ment's extinction. European France is a country which, caught in the river of war, has struggled out of the main current into a less turbulent back-water, and which is trying to remain there quiescent, and to resist any movement back to the heavy waters. Time is in war a vital factor; but it is a totally different factor to the man who waits (Petain) and to the man who strikes (Hitler). The Vichy wait-and-see policy is tolerated by Hitler only because the French fleet and French North Africa retain, if Hitler breaks the armistice, freedom of action. General Weygand, as well as General de Gaulle, is a pivotal figure in a drama which cannot be played to a finish in Vichy alone, nor in Paris alone; and it is because of this peculiar state of counter' balance that some commentators anticipate no drastic Hitler action "at present." By securing .the French west and north-west coasts under the armistice Hitler served himself well for the purposes of his war on-Atlantic shipping, but the armistice did not give him all he wants for a Mediterranean war in which Britain and Greece have so heavily smitten his ally Mussolini. He sees now, more clearly than he did when making the armistice in June, that to dominate the Mediterranean may need the Nazification of Italy (proceeding), of Mediterranean France (which Petain resists), of Spain (another wait-and-see country), and of the Balkans, where the Greek and Turkish armies stand intact. j

Diplomacy having failed to solve this problem, the only solution is action; but where, and when? No one (as Lord Halifax says) can -Bee how Hitler can possibly stand still.