FRANCE AT WAR

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 October 1939, Page 8

FRANCE AT WAR

ATTITUDE OF THE PEOPLE. Throughout the second week of the war France has continued to move steadily, day by day and hour by hour, from the inevitable first phase of moral shock and (in the civilian sphere) of material improvisation towards that state of acceptance of effort and sacrifice by which alone wars can be won, wrote the Paris correspondent of “The Times” on September 17. Tributes have/ been rightly paid to the courageous resolution with which a vast majority of the nation faced the spectre of war from the start. At no time was there any question of cowardly yielding. But people would have been more than human if in the first few days there had not been a general throwing back of minds; with the questions: “Is this tragedy really inevitable? Could nothing have been done to prevent it? Can nothing still be done to limit or curtail it?” They would, have been more than human if the thing itself had not seemed a preposterous nightmare from which soon would come the release of awakening. They would have been more than human if, at last convinced of the bittei’ reality, they had not fo ra time taken refuge in a kind of voluntary surrender of the capacity to think too deeply about what lay ahead. Now all that is disappearing. Gradually but firmly France has found a new self —a France which knows what war is like; which realises that the last few years of careless self-indulg-ence are a closed chapter; which realises that war has simplified her needs down to two things—a strong arm and a stout heart. Both are there. It is natural that in the large towns, and above all in the capital itself, the signs of change should be most apparent. In the countryside and villages shops are shut here and there, while in the fields the lack of ablebodied men arid an increase of women and children and old men to be seen at work tell their own tale. But the highly complicated and highly organised life of the great cities is the best barometer.

In Paris the people have lost most of the look of intense inner strain and nervous tension which marked the earliest days. They know that war is now definitely a fact, and they propose to meet it on its own ground. In that spirit they have set about the task of reorganising their lives and energies with remarkable wholeheartedness. Their motto is not “Business as usual,” but “Pull together to win the war.” Where internal commerce is necessary or helpful to this end, there it has been encouraged; where export trade is able to contribute to the national economic strength—and M. Paul Reynaud is insistent on this point—everything will be done for its assistance.

IMPROVED CONDITIONS Already in Paris and other large centres a great improvement in material conditions is apparent. Telephone, telegraph, and postal services, it is true, are still too busy coping with military needs to be able as yet to provide regular or adequate service. But local transport is getting better, with more buses running and some Merto lines reopened, while taxis are getting more plentiful. Food supplies have been plentiful throughout, and prices are reasonably stable as a whole, thanks to unending official vigilance. As for the entertainment industry, it is doing its best to meet the new conditions, changed hours, and lack of personnel of all kinds owing to mobilisation. Cinemas and theatres are now permitted to open until 10.30, and even night, clubs are until 11 p.m. Signs of determination to give a lighter touch even to the most unpleasant necessities are much in evidence. A new art has arisen with the necessity for plastering windows with narrow strips of brown paper as a protection against splinterinng in case of a bomb explosion. Like suburban gardens seen from the trains, these offer an index to the character of the occupants. In some cases brown paper is just gummed anyhow in untidy profusion. in others neat yet unimaginative lozenges and rectangles are outlined; but in many instances real talent and wit are displayed. One tourist office, for example, has a design of the banks of the Nile with ferns and palms gracefully spreading upwards. Another has an ocean liner steaming past a Chinese junk, with gulls soaring overhead. Both these these designs sacrifice some safety to art, as sky is necessarily represented by spaces of untouched glass; but the slight additional risk is more, than outweighed by the spirit behind it. French pens and pencils continue to make fun of everything within reach, but there is a notable absence of highfalutin sentiment about their own troops or of any attempt to depict the enemy as squealing cowards. The majority of contributors to the French Press to-day have been through the last war. and consequently there are few instances of the chauvinistic extravagance or puerile ignorance which in all countries produced such absurd results last time. Nor is there any nonsense about the troops liking war. The theme of fighting itself is nowhere treated as a joke, nor would the public permit it to he. It. is realised that, a stern ordeal is ahead, and that stern resolution is the only thing with which to face it. |