FRENCH DISSENSIONS

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 May 1943, Page 6

FRENCH DISSENSIONS

FASCISTS ASSASSINATED. LONDON, May 15. The Berlin radio announced that the Mayor, M. Pierre Fitte, also the editor of a newspaper in Poitiers, both leading members of the Dorioi French People’s Party, have been assassinated. TWO JUDGES SHOT. ZURICH, May 15. Two French judges including the President of the Seine Et Marne Court, were shot dead after sentencing a Frenchman to death for sabotage. LEON BLUM IN CAMP LONDON, May 15. The “Observer’s” diplomatic correspondent says that M. Leon Blum, the former French Prime Minister, is believed to be in Majdan concentration camp, near Lublin, with other previously prominent politicians of Jewish extraction. The camp, which is one of the most notorious in Poland, has fifteen thousand inmates. The monthly deathroll is three hundred. RADIO~STAND-BY LONDON, May 15. The Algiers radio is repeatedly broadcasting this message to France: “Stand by your radios as long as possible during the next few days. Keep them tuned to English, American, or Allied stations.”

The radio issued a warning that the Germans are likely to spread stories that an invasion has begun to induce patriot Frenchmen to betray themselves. The correspondent of the “Daily Mail” in Madrid reports that patriots lit bonfires on French mountain tops to express the popular rejoicing at the Allied victory in Tunisia. The news was flashed throughout France like lightning. Hundreds of thousands of copies of 8.8. C. broadcasts were printed and passed from hand to hand. AT MARTINIQUE. LONDON, May 14. “Laval has sent a radio message to the Governor of Martinique (Admiral Robert), instructing him to make only a token resistance if the Americans attempt to land at Mar-

Unique,” reports the Madrid correspondent of the “Daily Mail.” “These instructions indicate that Admiral Robert is expected to sink his ships.” PLOT THAT FAILED. (Recd. 10.5 a.m.) NEW YORK, May 16. The story of how French sailors almost succeeded in stealing the 6,500 tons cruiser, Jeanne D’Arc from Admiral Robert, is told by sailors who escaped from Martinique, says the “New York Times.” The plot began early in 1943. The conspirators never knew more than one ox- two other conspirators, and messages came mysteriously. Eventually, enough men became interested to form a crew and sail the ship to the nearest American port. On Good Friday, the conspirators raided the ship’s stores and rifles and armed themselves. They prepared to capture the officers and take them shackled to an Allied port, however, at the last moment the officers intercepted the conspirators’ message, and several men were immediately clapped in a brig. Others escaped to a lonely part of the island, where they purchased a fishing boat, in which after a 30 hours’ trip they reached the British Island of Dominica, fx’om where they later came to New York, in order to join the de Gaullists.