FRENCH POLITICAL DOUBTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23703, 10 January 1939, Page 3

FRENCH POLITICAL DOUBTS

France is facing a period of serious political change, writes Mr Mallory Browne, Paris correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor. Just how long the period of transition will last,,and how grave the changes will be, no one can say. But it is certain that French democracy has reached a crucial point, a testing time great with significance not only for France, but for the world. There are plenty of political prophets, both French and foreign, who predict ncsitively that a dictatorship in France is now only a question of a few months, perhaps even of a few weeks. The diplomatic defeat implied in the Munich acco r ds, these observers say, marked the final collapse of the republican regime and prepared the way for the advent, in one form or another, of a totalitarian regime. Do not think that it is only the enemies of democracy who sav these tilings. Many Frenchmen who arc ardent and sincere democrats, who are genuine supporters of the doctrine of parliamentary government, who belong to political parties of various shades, to-day express serious apprehensions as to the outlook for the French Republican egime. There is a very general feeling, cutting right across the ordinary party lines, that France —faced as she is with a totalitarian Germany now numbering nearly 80.000. people against her own 40.000. and a totalitarian Italy more or less closely allied to the Reich—must be reorganised on a more efficient basis before she can possibly meet the challenge of these militaristic neighbours.