FRANCE TROUBLED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 10 April 1928, Page 7

FRANCE TROUBLED.

PLOTS OVER ALSACE. Nine years after the Versailles Treaty gave the “lot xirovinces” back to France the status of Alsace, and Loraine is one of the' most perplexing problems' facing the French Government. The whole question of the nationality and political learnings, of the people' of Alsace' and' Lorraine, which has played an enormous role in European history for centuries, is coming up again. On the pretext that the inhabitants of the departments of the Rhine—the new name for the two provinces—desire to continue the enjoyment of the seini-autononmous legime accorded' to them when victorious Prussia, snatched them from France in 1870, revolutionists and rabid religious leaders' have formed an extraordinary combination both demanding special treatment for these departments, but in the eyes of the French authorities, really working for separation from the republic and reunion with Germany.

HAVE GERMAN IDEA. After having been the cockpit of battle between the Germans and the French for centuries, Alsace and Lorraine entered definitely into the French commonwealth in the eighteenth century and were separated therefrom only fifty-seven years ago. But for two generations the inhabitants lived under the' German yoke, their children went to German schools, their minds were impregnated with the German idea. They are now in the ‘‘melting pot” but there are still radical differences to be effaced. There are deputies in the French Parliament l representing the Rhine departments who cannot or will not speak French. Their speeches are made in the Alsation dialect and have to be translated for reproduction in the Journal “Officiel.” Newspapers in the principal cities, Strassburg, Metz and Hagenau, printed in German, advocate what they, term autonomy. For several months the, French police, municipal and secret services, have been rounding up the leaders of this propaganda. .Three papers, the “Warheit,” the “Zukunft,” and' the “Volkstimme.” have heen suppressed because of their pro-German campaigns. Joseph Rosse. director of the “Flsaesser Jvnrier.” and right-hand man of Abbe Haegy. ex-deputy of the French Chamber, has been arrested and is facing trial for seditious propaganda. ARE FOREIGN AGENTS. jne French police are in possession or uoemnents lending to show mat a score oi so-called ciiarity organisations, young men s cluhs, sporting associations, and so on, are in reality agent* oi the Germans who are. working tor the separation or 'Alsace and i.orrame trom France and tiieir union rim Germany. “i'uey began by small calumnies, little lies, always directed against France and the French, ” says the “iein-ps,” “forming an insidious prooennaii propaganda. Without- using the word 'separation, ’ these, organisations never lost an opportunity of attacking French institutions or of assailing and insulting the Alsatiiyis who io ve France. finally, believing themselves' immune, tuey declared themselves frankly pro-German.” On Christmas Eve police raided the offices of the newspaper “Zukunft” and the publishing house named Erwinia, and seized documents demontiating that both received funds from foreign sources, presumably German, destined for tile spread of “autonomous” ideas. The Alsatian Communist deputy, Hueber, declared in the Chamber of Deputies that he desired to “furnish Europe with an Alsatian protest coming from the French Chamber. ’ ’

The Alsatian separationists base a great part of their propaganda on the school problem. In the rest of France schools have no connection with religion. In Alsace' and Lorraine the leaders of the church demand that the German system, comprising religious and secular education at the same time, be continued.