DE GAULLE’S FRANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25563, 16 June 1944, Page 2

DE GAULLE’S FRANCE

There will be very general respect for the opinion of the British Prime Minister that no useful purpose could be served at the present time by submitting to the House of Commons for debate the question of the status of the French Committee of National Liberation and its leader, General de Gaulle. If this question came up for general discussion words might be uttered that would make very useful Nazi propaganda, to combat the plain Allied 1 statement that the purpose of the landings in France is to restore liberty to the people of that country. In fact, it may be assumed with some confidence that the intentions of the British and United States Governments for the restoration of France, and those of General de Gaulle, are identical. It is certainly the Allied plan, which will be pursued with determination, to enable France to regain her individuality as a great democratic nation; and it cannot be believed that General de Gaulle has any other desire than that his nation should choose its own course to freedom, under its chosen leaders. The difference of opinion which exists between the Allies and General de Gaulle may be understood as being concerned with the method and timing of the steps that are to be taken to enable France once more to take her place among the nations. General de Gaulle’s impetuous idea is that his self-appointed Committee of National Liberation, which so far can prove only that it has the support of the vocal majority of Frenchmen outside France, should be recognised immediately-as the provisional Government within France —and this while the Allies are still fighting hard, with large losses of British and American life and a lavish expenditure of British and American equipment, to establish themselves on a first few hundred square miles of Normandy. Mr Churchill put the position of the Allied Governments on record in May, when he told the House of Commons that recognition of the Committee of Liberation as the provisional Government had been withheld “because they were not sure it represented the French nation.” The Allies, he declared, desired more knowledge of the'situation within France before they conceded the de Gaulle organisation complete authority. General de Gaulle’s return to French territory, now that the Allies have cleared a foothold there, is certainly tactless; but the finer points of procedure are likely to be ignored, perhaps Understandably, by a man who believes he is fighting for the dignity and prestige of his country. His demand upon the Allies to recognise civil and military leaders in the recovered portions of Normandy appointed by his Committee of National Liberation—which they do not recognise as a provisional Government—smacks. of presumption. The first stages in the operations for the liberation of French territory are necessarily military. The immediately convenient, if not the only practicable, form of administration must be that which the forces of occupation consider expedient. The Allies have in their Civil Affairs, or “G 5,” Section, a skilfully-constituted organisation to undertake the delicate tasks of administration of European territories in the period of transition after their recovery. If they de-

sire, before acknowledging any Government in France, to be satisfied that it is acceptable«to the people of France, it might have been thought that even General de# Gaulle would recognise the essential honesty and good sense of their attitude. As a loyal Frenchman it would not have become him ill to have accepted this position of reserve by the liberators of France. Instead of challenging it, he could without losing their respect have interpreted it as a challenge to himself to prove his contention that France wants him as its provisional leader.