Petain Government Has “Dropped the Mask”

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 121, 23 May 1941, Page 8

Petain Government Has “Dropped the Mask”

EARLY-PEACE BAIT LONDON, May 21. With the German request that the United States withdraw her diplomatic representatives from Paris, also a conference of Vichy Ministers in Paris and the German emphasis that the French “now realise that there is no choice but to submit,” France’s relations in the democratic world merge with the new and more crucial developments in the war situation. The correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph at the French frontier says: “Vichy correspondents agree that the Petain Government has ‘dropped the mask.’ Nothing is now heard about adhering to the strict terms of the armistice or respect for the difficulties of their former ally. “After the fall of Yugoslavia and Greece, the men of Vichy were convinced that a German victory was inevitable and have taken care to propagate this belief among the French people, who are allowed to hear little of Italy’s defeats in Africa, but much about the prospect of an early peace, which, they are told, will, by Hitler’s magnaminity, give France a role in Europe second only to Germany’s. “Among the advantages Hitler expects from Vichy’s compliance is the production of a state of affairs amounting to war between France and Britain resulting from the hostilities between Vichy and the Free French troops, also from other anti-allied action which the Vichy Government admits it is contemplating.”