EVIL IN FRANCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 December 1940, Page 9

EVIL IN FRANCE

PEOPLE THOUGHT ALL WELL. The suggestions put forward in certain high British quarters for the tightening of the censorship with regard not only to news, but even comment, should be studied closely before any steps in that direction are taken (wrote the ex-Paris correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian” recently). As one who has had to suffer daily agonies from the censors of MM. Daladier and Reynaud, I know from experience how destructive a rigorous -and unintelligent censorship can be. Not only does it do its best to destroy journalism as an honest profession, but it has the most deplorable effect on the public by (1) keeping it in ignorance, and (2) creating a state of mind which is a mixture of credulity, complacency and imbecile optimism. The censorship did not merely suppress unpleasant truths, but it encouraged pleasant falsehoods. A French journalist who is paid by the line had only to write columns of cheerful and boot-licking drivel to get every word of it passed. The censorship would not have passed the slightest reference to the shortage of sugar in the grocery shops of Paris. Knowing what the censors were, I once sent them for fun a character sketch of M. Georges Bonnet, in which I said that he was noted for his honest, straightforward manner and for his handsome and genial personality, and that no French statesman was more deeply admired and loved by the British people than he. Lord Halifax, I added, had the highest esteem and affection for M. Bonnet. This leg-pull was passed by the French censors without a single cut. The censorship made many grotesque “howlers,” some of which were quoted during the Chamber debate in January. Further, the censors themselves belonged to different political parties, which created. , a great deal of discrimination among papers. Thus some rather scurrilous attacks on certain politicians would be passed, but the reply to the attacks suppressed. There were also innumerable cases of lack of co-or-dination and of plain incompetence; the same piece'of news would be allowed to appear in some papers, but not in others. All articles, however false, suggesting that Italy and Spain were “basically” anti-German were allowed to pass; anything suggesting that Italy’s or Spain’s attitude to the Allies was unfriendly was blue-pencilled. It is true that during the first week or two of M. Reynaud in office the censorship somewhat relaxed, but on the whole the public was kept almost to 'the bitter end in a state of unpleasant allusion. All the illusions about Italy’s anti-Ger-man spirit, the impregnability of the Maginot Line, and the magnificent .work that was being done on the northern “extension” were kept up in the most methodical way. I do not remember seeing a single article in the French Press during nine months of war querying .the strength of the northern “extension”; I remember dozens describing it as being equal to the Siegfried Line. THE TROOPS’ SCEPTICISM The troops, at least those in the front lines, treated the greater part of the Press with great scepticism and disdain; one of the few papers

that the soldiers enjoyed reading was the “Oeuvre,” with the daily bit of exciting speculation provided by Mme. Tabouis. There was one nonFrench paper published in Paris which even during the final phases of the war in France still printed the most optimistic stories on military operations. I pointed out to one of the men responsible that his articles were bitterly resented by the soldiers, particularly by the B.E.F. men. He sounded apologetic and said that his paper had to go to press at a certain hour and he therefore had to write his military comment in such a way that “it would be sure to be passed by the censorship without delay.” As the correspondent of a paper which tries to give careful assessments of political and military situations, I had to suffer particularly badly from the French censors. They like British correspondents in France to rave about everything. If we said, for instance, that the original Maginot Line was admirable, but queried the soundness of the extension, the first part of the story was left intact, and the second completely suppressed. Even after the break-through on the Meuse I had a passage on the subject cut out because I had mentioned M. Daladier. “Though he is no longer War Minister,” I was told, “he is still a member of the Government, and you must not incriminate Cabinet Ministers.”

I shall not dwell on minor absurdities such as calling Tours “somewhere in France,” when for two days the German wireless' had already been ridiculing Tours as the “provisional, the ' very provisional, capital of France.” The worst thingwas not the, details of the system, but the system itself, which consistently suppressed disquieting facts, forbade the Press to dwell on real and even potential weaknesses, military, economic, or any other, and which, on the contrary, allowed papers to exist chiefly as a means of persuading the public- that all was well and that tliere was nothing to worry about: The - result of it was eight, pionfhs of perfect complacency .followed by a fearful shock,. which . was .. all . the more demoralising ■ as. the-, .public—and' even the! troops had been completely unprepared ,f or - it.,,, The censorship was . one of the . chief causes of France's 'collapse;' let'us-not forget it. . . • .