FRENCH PROTEST

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 79, 1 October 1945, Page 7

FRENCH PROTEST

CHINESE ENTRY TO LAOS

PARIS, September 30.

General Peschkoff, French Ambassador to Chungking, reported that he had been instructed to protest against the entrance of Chinese divisions into Laos, the French protectorate in Indo-China. A dispatch to the French agency stated that a division had penetrated as far as the capital of Laos, Luang Prabang. A communique from the official "Indo-China Committee" meanwhile declared that the capture of Saigon by a handful of French troops on September 23 was in no way a French coup d'etat. It added that the French had acted in co-operation with their allies. The local population was pleased to be rid of disorderly elements that had been armed and incited by the Japanese. The Associated Press correspondent at Hanoi says that the Chinese General Lv Han proclaimed that the Chinese would exercise supreme power in Indo-China northward of the 16th parallel until the Japanese were completely disarmed and peace guaranteed. The Japanese General Tsushihashi surrendered an army of about 40,000 men at a ceremony at the GovernorGeneral's palace on Friday, which the French representative, General Marcel Allesandri, refused to attend because the Tricolour was not flown. The Chinese explained th"st only the flags of the four Powers . at the Potsdam Conference could fly over the ceremonies. The Associated Press comments that the Tricolour was displayed at previous Japanese surrenders at Nanking and Saigon. The Premier, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Provisional Annamese Government, also did not attend the ceremony. He had been invited as an individual, and not as the leader of the Government.