PLIGHT OF FRANCE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20414, 26 November 1940, Page 6

PLIGHT OF FRANCE

BETRAYAL BY LEADERS SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE The growing bitterness of the people of France against the leaders who surrendered to the Germans is exemplified in letters received by a New Zealand resident from relatives who escaped from France to British countries. There is in the letters something of the spirit of France before the collapse. “One must have been in France to realise all the miseries and sufferings of the brave people of France,” says a cousin of the New Zealand resident, who escaped from Paris to England, by way of Bordeaux. “Perhaps you will say ‘What of it now?’ It is not the people of France who capitulated, and I am sure you know it well enough. Your brother, my brothers, would have gone on to the end, rather than give up.” From her father, temporarily in Sydney, the New Zealander has had news of a relative’s captivity in Germany as a prisoner of war. “I only hope we shall not finish in captivity ourselves,’.’ the father writes. “After all, it might happen, if such beasts as that scoundred Laval, the arch traitor, or his friend Baudouin are allowed to live. Ido hope to live long enough to see those ' scoundrels punished. Laval is the gem. I have known him for years, specially' when I was manager of banks in Antwerp and Brussels. He was ready to sell his country, his friends, anyone or anything; not his soul, simply because he has none. When will they sweep away that dirty bunch? And poor Petain in that crowd! They have to take old, respected citizens for their ignoble work.”