FOOD SHORTAGES IN FRANCE

Southland Times, Issue 24352, 5 February 1941, Page 10

FOOD SHORTAGES IN FRANCE

i Nazis Pillage Crops — 1 FRENCH HOUSEWIVES’ TRIALS I I Although Britain has agreed to the ! despatch by the Americans of medical : supplies and certain foodstuffs to UnI occupied France, there has been no relaxation of the blockade, says the Director of Publicity, Mr J. T. Paul, in an official statement. Germany and some of her agents, he says, tried to mobilize sympathy with France in the United States, in an effort to break the blockade; but the clear demonstration that, food famine in the occupied countries is due to Nazi pillage spoiled the German plan, and today the blockade continues to press heavily on the German war machine. When the Germans seek to break the blockade it is not for food, but for materials essential to the production of war machines. In food she is now fairly well stocked, because she has pillaged most of Europe. France, in particular has suffered. She was brought to famine level before winter descended on her. Over 800.000 tons of wheat were taken from France by the Nazis, who, before the crops were harvested, ma.ked the best fi las with the swastika to reserve them for the Reich.

SLAUGHTER OF LIVESTOCK

It is reported, too, that in France over 1,000,000 pigs were requisitioned in a fortnight of September. This slaughter of livestock repeated the Nazi operations in Denmark and the Netherlands. There are well-authenticated reports that the Germans also demanded 58 per cent, of the livestock in Unoccupied France.

Fats are short, particularly in butter and oil. Before the war normal consumption was 17 kilos a head, but in October, accordmg to the Minister of Agriculture, she possessed only enough for from five to six kilos. The heavy reduction in cows has been a cause, and also the problem of collection owing to petrol shortage. The position is most serious in the unoccupied zone, because the occupied zone produces 85 per cent of France’s dairy products. PLUNDER OF WINES

Normally, France was self-sufficient in sugar. At least 80 per cent of last year’s crop was lest. As practically the whole of the beet crop was grown in the zone now occupied by the Germans, unoccupied France faces a serious sugar shortage, which will necessitate the transformation into sugar of part of the

southern wine vintage. Meat prospects are almost hopeless. Wine has been plundered by the Germans. Dr Goebbels boasted that when Molotov was in Berlin the “popping champagne corks sounded like an antiaircraft barrage.” The fact that the Heisdeck firm alone had to deliver ' 12.000,000 bottles of champagne to the I Nazis gives point to the doctor’s state- : ment. I The trials of the French housewife I are accentuated by the time she must | spend in food queues. The Petit Journal I "ays that strren hours are required to obtain essent'a's—an hour and a-half for butter, an hour and a-quarter for I lard, an hour and three-quarters for soap, an hour and three-quarters for sugar, one hour for alimentary pastes. SEIZURE OF TRANSPORT M. Caziot, the Vichy Minister of Agriculture, mentioned at the same time the breakdown in transport. This is due partly to the German seizure of vast numbers of locomotives and trucks and also to the petrol famine. Unoccupied France has large stocks of copper, which Germany needs, and this item is expected to appear in talks with the Vichy Government. On top of all .these ills, German soldiers purchase goods with paper marks, which give a legalistic cover to wholesale pillage. This has been lhe Nazi practice in all the countries the horde has penetrated.

At the same time, many people ask why the Nazis should bring these countries to famine level when their actions must make the task of occupation more difficult. One of the answers is that Hitler’s Germany badly needs the things she has looted. And one of the chief reasons for needing them is the blockade.