PARIS PRESS UNDER NAZIS

Evening Star, Issue 23817, 22 February 1941, Page 3

PARIS PRESS UNDER NAZIS

A very few clays after the occupation of Paris, two old-established newspapers, the ‘ Matin ’ and the ‘ ParisSoir ’ appeared, also several new ones such as ‘ Aujourdhui,’ ‘ France an Travail,’ and ‘ Nouvelle France.’ We wore all starved for news and eagerly bought the first copies. Naturally we expected rigid censorship, but what was our astonishment to find the entire paper full of eulogies of the German leaders, abuse of everything French, details of the air raids on England, with always all German planes returning safely to their bases. People were furious at the thought that Frenchmen could be found to write such patent lies. Then it dawned on us that these papers were not only being censored, but were actually issued by a German staff. At the ‘ Paris-Soir ’ office the man who had been running the elevator for five years suddenly put on a German, officer’s uniform and became editor-in-chief. The result was that most people stopped reading newspapers altogether, but the newspaper is n part of your daily life and you miss it.—An American Groat War veteran who has been in the food business in Paris for ‘2O years, and is visiting Now York, in a North American Newspaper Alliance article, 29/12/40.