"STATE OF SIEGE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 76, 26 September 1941, Page 5

"STATE OF SIEGE"

POSITION OF PARIS

GERMANS ISSUE DENIAL

(Rec. 11.30 a,m.) LONDON, Sept. 25.

Unconfirmed reports from France declare that a state of siege has been declared in Paris as a result of new incidents. This is denied from Berlin, which declares that normal conditions have prevailed in Paris since the'lifting of the curfew on September 23.

The Vichy radio stated that a terrific explosion in a Bordeaux alcohol factory caused several million francs' worth of damage. All the tanks blew up and part of the buildings crumbled.

A Berlin commentator also said today that normal conditions prevail" in occupied France. According to this spokesman, Admiral Darlan has thanked the German military governor of Paris for raising the curfew restrictions. The Lisbon correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" says that a responsible American who has spent a year in France on an official mission declared that the elements of resistance in unoccupied France are gathering their forces, for action when the right time comes.

France is facing a winter of terrible hunger, which the leaders of resistance believe will reduce the people to desperation and make them realise that nothing can be gained any longer from passiveness.

The German spoliation of unoccupied France, the official-said, is becoming more and more open every day, and the Germans no longer bother to disguise the fact that food and goods are being carried off to Germany.

Both Italian and German railway trucks now come alongside the docks at Marseilles to fetch cargoes from ships.. Enormous quantities of wine are going to Germany for the manufacture of commercial alcohol.

Moscow radio says that a wave of strikes is sweeping Belgium, where

125,000 workers struck in one, area. The production of the coal mines has decreased by 36 per cent., in spite of the fact, that more workers. than ever are engaged.

The radio also reported that a tremendous explosion in a Czecho-Slovak munition works killed and wounded hundreds imported German workers;' and 900 were sent to hospital. Another explosion destroyed the greater part of the electric power station of the factory. "'■'■■ A Czech who has been executed for railway sabotage was the third person sentenced to death in 24 hours.