VICHY GOVERNMENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIII, Issue 12, 12 December 1942, Page 5

VICHY GOVERNMENT

MAY RETURN TO PARIS MORE ARRE~STS IN LYONS (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) LONDON, Dec. 11. There are indications from Germany that the Vichy Government will be allowed to return to Paris. In announcing that this is expected soon, the Berlin radio says that Germany has a duty to prevent France becoming a potential danger to the Nazis. Eight hundred French people have been arrested in Lyons, where they arc said to have set up a semimilitary organisation and to be working for the United Nations. DIVIDING THE PEOPLE. The Germans plan to divide the French people by the maintenance of an artificial frontier line between the Vichy zone and the rest of France, says the Standard. The "frontier" is closely watched by German sentries with dogs, but traffic in political fugitives and escaping prisoners has ceased. There is no advantage now in escaping to the southern portion of France. Goebi-ils is using this division for astute propaganda to prevent effective French national unity and * to maintain mutual distrust and antagonism between the north and the south. In Southern France there are still the same privations, the same cold hunger, the lack of medical supplies, and the same persistent underground activities. The Lyons underground movement lias organised a hot reception for the German troops moving south. An eye-witness has reported bomb explosions throughout the city and similar incidents are reported "from Toulouse.