NAZI-FRENCH TALKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 134, 3 December 1941, Page 9

NAZI-FRENCH TALKS

MUCH CONJECTURE

POSSIBLE USE OF PORTS

REINFORCEMENTS FOR

LIBYA

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

LONDON, December 2

It is, announced in Vichy that the French Chief of State, Marshal Petain, and the Premier, Admiral Darlan, have returned after meeting Reichsmarshal Goering 80 miles south-east of Paris in German-occupied France. The French Secretary of State, M. Benoist Mechvin, told the Press at the German Embassy in Paris that as a result of the meeting the French could envisage the future with increased confidence. He added that the meeting had permitted a broad examination of problems which would be discussed in more detail in the coming weeks. A semi-official commentary in Berlin stated that the principle of cooperation in the spirit of the new order had been unmistakably intensified as a result of the conversations. Another Berlin statement said that Marshal Petain's .visit to occupied France i caused no surprise. Naturally, poli- | tical circles attached considerable importance to the meeting, but abstained from conjecture. The statement then pointedly recalled a recent article in a Paris newspaper by M. Marcel Deat emphasising the urgent necessity for adequate and active defence of the French colonial empire. The Madrid correspondent ,of the "Daily Mail" says that Marshal Petain and Field-Marshal Goering are believed to have discussed the immediate German use of Fi-ench Mediterranean and North African ports for rushing reinforcements to General Rommel in Libya. Diplomatic circles in Madrid emphasise that if Marshal Petain agrees to this German demand it will be the first step to the full surrender of all French bases, including Oran, Casablanca, and Dakar. The French envoy to Paris, Count de Brinon, in an interview, said thatthe meeting was not negotiation but a general conversation between two men with mutual esteem for each other as soldiers. Nevertheless, something most important might emerge from it. The meeting took place in FieldMarshal Goering's special train at the St. Florentin station. Petain and Goering conferred for 15 minutes be-' fore Darlan was called in. The talks then continued for three hours. .