METROPOLITAN FRANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25457, 11 February 1944, Page 3

METROPOLITAN FRANCE

PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY RECOGNITION OF COMMITTEE EXPECTED (Rec. 0.30 a.m.) NEW YORK, Feb. 10. Recognition of the French Committee of National Liberation as the provisional authority for Metropolitan France until such time as a provisional Government can be elected within France itself is expected to be announced in Washington and London shortly, says the Washington correspondent of the New York Times. This broadening of recognition to include the French mainland will be granted on the understanding that the committee will take the earliest possible steps to have a provisional Governmen chosen within France. There will be no Allied military Government for France. As any part of the country ceases to be a combat zone the committee’s civilian authority will rule. French liaison officers chosen by the oommittee will enter with the invading armies, which, it is believed certain, will include French fighting forces. Food and supplies for the relief and rehabilitation of the civilian population will be brought in by Allied armies and paid for by the French Government, which has ample funds in the United States. With recognition of the committee as the authority for Metropolitan France will come greater participation by the committee in the political decisions to be made about Europe.