EVENING POST SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1943. FRENCH UNITY IN SIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 67, 20 March 1943, Page 4

EVENING POST SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1943. FRENCH UNITY IN SIGHT

. » The recent speeches and actions of General Giraud in North Africa have brought with them a very considerable advance towards French unity. In fact, it might be said now, practically without reserve, that French unity is in sight. The main obstacle to unity was the lingering distrust by patriotic Frenchmen of any connection with Vichy visible in the administration of French North Africa. General Giraud has now not only publicly disclaimed in his broadcast and other statements all connection with Vichy, but he has also by vigorous action endeavoured to remove from the administration of North Africa all pro-Vichy personnel. For reasons he himself put forward in his broadcast from Algiers a clean sweep overnight was impossible. A professional administrator cannot be replaced at a moment's notice in an oversea province of France where a large proportion of the resident French were officials. But the "purge" has been begun with energy. With it go ttfe abolition of Vichy legislation, except such parts as suit the new regime, and the disappearance of such tokens of adherence to Vichy as the portraits of Marshal Petain, the protagonist of Axis collaboration, once so prominent on the walls of public places in North Africa. To this must be added the liberation of North Africa from the Nazi doctrine of racial intolerance with its persecution of Jews, a strong and ancient element in the population of North Africa, domiciled there centuries before the advent of the. French themselves. Giraud has declared for the liberty, equality, and fraternity of the Third French Republic.

On such a basis as Giraud has laid down it should be possible, so far as the outside world can discern, for all Frenchmen of good will to unite in the great crusade for the liberation of France and the oppressed and enslaved nations of Europe. And, it would seem, they are uniting. General de Gaulle, on the one hand, has expressed his willingness to meet General Giraud in Algiers to cement the union of the two leading groups of Frenchmen on terms acceptable to both. On the other hand, General Nogues, the Commander-in-Chief in Morocco, who opposed to the Anglo-American forces the stiffest resistance they met anywhere in their landings in North Africa, has declared himself satisfied with General Giraud's response to fundamental questions on the future of the anti-Axis movement. It is also a sign of approval of the new basis of agreement proposed ■. by Giraud that French Guiana, which had long maintained its allegiance to Vichy and become, incidentally, an object of suspicion to the Allies in the anti-TJ-boat campaign in the Caribbean Sea, has gone over to Giraud. The French colony of Martinique alone, in the West Indies, remains the last stronghold of Vichyism in the French Colonial Empire. It is likely soon to follow the lead of French Guiana.

The unity of France in the struggle against the Axis means much to the Allies. In North Africa and the rest of the French Empire in Africa there is the nucleus of a powerful army, such as helped France so greatly in the first World War. In spite of losses from various causes the French navy still includes many warships of .different categories capable of valuable service in securing the safety of the seas for the vast military operations the Allies must undertake to win the war. Only the disarmed fleet at Alexandria, under Admiral Godefroy,. remains a doubtful quantity. Here, again, there can now be no valid reason for a further failure to fight in the cause of France, as well as for the Allies. Thus, the way is now open for the French outside France to bury any political differences they may once have entertained, to the detriment of the welfare of France, and to pull together in the one great task which faces men still free, the task of liberating their countrymen and fellowmen in Europe and Asia still under the heel of the brutal conqueror.