French Press Take de Gaulle to Task

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 45, 22 February 1945, Page 5

French Press Take de Gaulle to Task

CURT REFUSAL TO MEET ROOSEVELT Received Wednesday, 8.50 p.m. LONDON, Feb. 21. i The Times’ Paris correspondent reports that two morning and three evening newspapers publish editorials on General De Gaulle’s refusal to meet President Roosevelt. All except one semi-official evening paper, Le Monde, criticise the decision more or less severely. One morning paper attacks the “sulking” policy of weakness. The Paris radio last night broadcast the following statement from General de Gaulle’s office about President Roosevelt’s invitation to meet him: “On February 12 the American Ambassador (Mr. Jefferson Caffery) called on General de Gaulle With a message from President Roosevelt expressing regret that he was unable to visit Paris in accordance to the French Government’s November invitation. President Roosevelt in turn invited General de Gaulle to meet him at Algiers. If de Gaulle accepted the date of the meeting would be fixed later, “General de Gaulle told the Ambassador that he was pleased to learn that President Roosevelt intended to visit a French port, but pointed out that this invitation had taken him unawares and at a moment when many important questions demanded his presence in Paris, also that it was made after the Yalta Conference in which France had not participated and the details of which France was still ignorant. ‘ ‘ General de Gaulle asked the Ambassador to assure President Roosevelt that he did not give up hope of seeing him coming to Paris where the Government and the entire population would always be very happy to receive him. It is common knowledge that the French and Allied Governments are actively exchanging points of view about the conclusions reached at the Yalta Conference.”