PROTEST FROM GERMANY

Taranaki Daily News, 12 November 1934, Page 5

PROTEST FROM GERMANY

FRENCH TROOPS IN SAAR DRAMATIC MEETING HELD By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 7 p.m. London, Nov. 10. There was a dramatic meeting at Paris between M. Pierre Laval, French Foreign Minister, and Herr Koster the German ambassador, when Herr. Koster presented Germany’s protest against the possible use of French troops in the Saar, says the Paris correspondent of the Daily Mail. M. Laval forcibly replied that the French Government could not understand such a protest and could not agree to the German interpretation of the facts. . M. Laval pointed out that any French intervention in the Saar would not be French intervention as such but an international undertaking ordered by the Saar Governing Commission in accordance with the League Council regulations, against which Germany did not P Replying to protests that the Saar was German territory, that military aoh° n would interfere with the freedom of the plebiscite and that it would be contrary to the Locarno Pact, M. Laval replied that only the plebiscite could restore to Germany sovereignty over the Saar. He pointed out that by article 49 of the Treaty of Versailles Germany specifically renounced the territory in favour of the League of Nations as trustee. The League as governor of the Saar was therefore clearly entitled to call in troops to restore order if necessary, and these troops acting under such a mandate would have an international character.