VICHY INDICTS FORMER REGIME

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 84, 6 October 1941, Page 6

VICHY INDICTS FORMER REGIME

Since the Petain coup d'etat, French Fascism has had time to settle down. Even Admiral Darlan has lately been but little in the news. But a report received today indicates that Vichy absolutism is likely to persist in one of its most unI democratic and tyrannical proposals —the passing of judgment on Frencb ex-Ministers outside of the courts. Marshal Petain himself is reported to have attended a sitting of the council which was set up to shortcircuit the law courts; and it is rumoured that the accused, who have prepared cases, will not be allowed to present their defence. So apparently the sobering-down process will not be allowed to operate where political enmities are concerned. But, although the Vichy Government may keep the facts out of the proceedings of the council which it has created to scourge its party enemies, no Vichy* Government will be able to keep the facts out of history. Much of this history is, indeed, already made. French evacuees from Syria, it is announced, have now all reached France. The numbers of the Syrian garrison that joined the Free French is given at 13,000 French colonial troops and 6000 French.