FRENCH UNITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25174, 15 March 1943, Page 3

FRENCH UNITY

RESISTANCE TO AXIS CENTRAL COUNCIL PROPOSED (Rec 10.45 p.m.) LONDON, Mar. 14. The French National Committee has disclosed that it sent to General Giraud at the end of February a comprehensive four-point plan for complete French unity. The memorandum was published on the eve of ,what was described as an important broadcast by General Giraud from Algiers. The memorandum calls for the unification of the resisting forces of France under the direction of one provisional central organisation, embracing all shades of French anti-Axis opinion, with a complementary representative council of resistance. The National Committee says that such a council could be formed by delegates mandated from metropolitan France, from the fighting element, from parliamentarians who have not collaborated with the Germans, from the legislatures of the liberated territories. and from economic trade unionists and university groups in the Empire. The memorandum outlines the conditions under which unity would be possible, as follows: 1. The so-called armistice concluded against France must be regarded as null and. void in French North and West Africa. The impossibility must also be recognised of leaving in the principal posts men who were largely responsible for the capitulation ,of France and collaboration with the enemy. . , 2 All French territories as they are liberated must have the fundamental liberties restored, and all citizens detained in violation of these liberties must be set free “ , , 3. Republican legality must be reestablished. . _ , 4. The establishment of the French post-war constitution must be through free expression and popular will.