VICHY BETRAYAL

Southland Times, Issue 24601, 25 November 1941, Page 5

VICHY BETRAYAL

AIR GENERAL JOINS FREE FRENCH LONDON, November 23. Free French headquarters announce that Air-General Odic, who was appointed Chief of Staff of the French Air Force after the Armistice and who subsequently went to the United States, has now joined General de Gaulle. In a statement in Washington in which he stated that Vichy wished to hand over North Africa to the Germans, General Odic said:— “After the Armistice I had hoped that it would still be possible to follow Vichy’s policy with dignity. The maintenance of the Empire’s integrity was the reason for the union of all Frenchmen; but if this unity could be accepted under sufferance it could not be accepted in abjection. I have often thought of regaining my freedom, but I was always held by the hope of being able to preserve the integrity of North Africa. Today, however, unity becomes an absurd fiction when it is based to destroy that which it is its real aim to preserve. “After the Syrian betrayal Vichy now desires to hand over North Africa to the Germans. All our colonies in that region are threatened with German occupation and with the added humiliation that Frenchmen are asked to co-operate with the Germans in their plans. “General Weygand has resigned; the time has come for everybody to decide. France must not be obliged one day to pay for Vichy’s intrigues—France must not sit beside Germany on the bench of the accused. France must take her place among the judges. That is what Frenchmen think today, but Vichy prefers civil war under the protection of the enemy. Under those conditions passive disapproval is not enough. French unity can be affirmed only through Free France. Under the command of General de Gaulle I now resume the fight.”