FRENCH AFFAIRS

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 November 1944, Page 8

FRENCH AFFAIRS

MR ROOSEVELT’S VISIT WASHINGTON, November 5. The United States State Department has announced that the French Provisional Government has invited Mr Roosevelt and the Secretary oi State (Mr Cordell Hull} to visit Paris, as a mark of Frehcn appreciation of the part American, forces have played in the liberation of France. The United Press says it is assumed that Mr Roosevelt and Mr Hull will accept, since the State Department usually withholds the release of such messages until acceptance is assured. PATRIOTIC MILITIA. LONDON, November 5. The spokesman of the. National Council of Resistance, broadcasting over the Paris radio on the Government decision to disband the patriotic militia, said: “We cannot rely on the police to round up fifth columnists. Only very few of the thousands of Demand’s militia so far have been arrested. It is our duty to participate in the battle against Germany, .but how can we fight at the . frontiers when we have hot finished the ehe’my in bur midst?” LIFE IMPRISONMENT. (Rec. Noon.) LONDON, November 6. Armand Pinsard, aged 57, a retired Brigadier-General of the French Air Force, who appeared in the Paris Assize Court with an array of medals, including the British D.S.C. in the last war, was, to-day, sentenced to life imprisonment for high treason. It was stated that he was a civilian official of the French Volunteer Legion which fought against the Rusisans. Pinsard is the first high-ranking officer to be tried as a collaborationist. He was the second most famous air ace of the last war, and was badly wounded in the last days of the Battle of France in the present war. AIRMENRETURN. RUGBY, November 3. The famous Lorraine Squadron of the Fighting French Air Force took off from Britain a few days ago for its new base in France. For many of the crews it was their first contact with French soil since 1940.. The squadron has been given permission to wear the tricolour on the tail fins of their Bostons. This does not imply a change in command. The squadron is still a unit of the Royal Air Force.

Pilots of a French Air Force unit, “Normandy,” fighting with the Russian forces, have so far shot down 105 enemy aeroplanes over East Prussia, according to the Moscow radio. In one day they shot down 29 German aeroplanes and damaged another three.

MARSEILLES PORT.

LONDON, November 6.

The port of Marseilles has been repaired and is already being used in spite of the Germans’ widespread demolitions. The port facilities are now capable of handling 30,000 tons of cargo a day. GERMANS IN SOUTH-WEST.

(Rec. 10 a.m.) LONDON, Nov. 6. The German .News Agency stated that a four-dav truce was declared in the southern fortress zone of the Gironde, for the evacuation of the civilian population.

“DEATH CELLAR”

LONDON, November 6

The “Daily Mail’s” Paris correspondent, referring to the case of Dr. Petiot, who is accused of many murders, says that two women and a man were arrested for sheltering Dr. Petiot. They told the police that Petiot, before the fall of Paris-, never showed signs of working for the resistance movement. He did not even seem to be a good patriot. The correspondent continues: While the cleverest detectives were searching throughout France for the owner cl the “Death Cellar” in the Rue-le-Sueur Petiot was living in a small flat in the heart of Paris. He passed long hours indoors, playing patience, also reading crime stories and sociological works, and carrying out queer calculations with extraordinary dice of his own design.