CHANGES IN FRANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24348, 12 July 1940, Page 5

CHANGES IN FRANCE

A NEW CONSTITUTION BILL PASSED BY ASSEMBLY REFERENDUM TO BE TAKEN (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) VICHY, July 11. (Received July 11, at 10 p.m.) The National Assembly by 569 votes to 80 passed the Bill giving Marshal Petain full powers to make a new Constitution.' There were 15 abstentions. M. Laval did not reveal whether the proposed referendum would be held over the whole of France or in .nonoccupied France. The preamble to the Bill declared that the country must understand and accept the necessity for a national revolution. "We must look back on our errors, .determine our responsibilities, and seek the causes of our weaknesses. A nation like ours, whatever

its sorrows may be, must not lose itself in senseless regrets. The Government muist be fully empowered to save what can be saved and destroy what must be destroyed. It, therefore, asks Parliament to give full confidence to Marshal Petain to promulgate the fundamental laws of the French State under his signature It is necessary to terminate the present economic disorder by rational organisation and corporative institutions." The German press has launched a new campaign against France, giving prominence to lurid accounts • of the treatment by the French of German prisoners of war. All petrol in Germanoccupied France has been confiscated The use of private cars is forbidden in unoccupied France. The death sentence will be imposed for distributing in the German occupied zone newspapers which are printed elsewhere.