FATE OF FRANCE

Waikato Independent, Volume XL, Issue 3763, 27 September 1940, Page 3

FATE OF FRANCE

IN THE HANDS OF GERMANY

SERIOUS ECONOMIC POSITION

“The unfortunate Petain Government knows that, so far as European France is concerned, its fate rests entirely in the hands of the German conqueror,” wrote the former Paris correspondent of the Sunday “Times” in August. But, in order to make the French

people forget it, it likes to repeat loud and meaningless phrases about the “national revolution,” and to assume the airs of a strong authoritarian government. Courts are being set up to try the “war culprits , General De Gaulle has been condemned to death, and large numbers of people, both outside France and in France, are being deprived of their nationality. This “denationalisation” drive is calculated to pander to the lower ■ instincts of the extremists; and it is charcteristic that the proportion of persons of Jewish descent should be very high among the “denationalised” people. They include a dis-, tinguished scholar and former curator of the French National Library, M. Julien Cain, who was sorely tempted to leave for England in the middle of June, but who decided on second thought, and while already on board a British ship off Bordeaux, to stay in his native country. All this recrimination against “war culprits,” all this petty persecution, is intended to keep people’s minds busy, and to keep them off the grim realities with which “Petain” France is faced. Faced With Disaster The grimmest of these realities is the economic reality, and without German co-operation Petain France will be faced with appalling disasters in the months to come. Even M. Fernand-Laurent, an ardent pro-Fascist, admits in the “Jour” that: If Article 17 of the Armistice were to be fully maintained —an article prohibiting the transport of any goods from occupied to unoccupied France —it would constitute an insurmountable obstacle in the way of a return to normal activity throughout the territory of France. And such a return alone can save us from the hardships of the coming winter—hardships from which we have every-

thing to fear. All of which amounts to saying that unless the Germans on the Armistice Commission at Wiesbaden show mercy “Petain” France is “sunk,” for, with eight million refugees, it has to maintain nearly half the French population inside an area producing only about oneeighth of France’s food.

“Petain” France is so nervous about the coming winter that attempts are being made to impress upon the United States the danger of starvation. The American reactions to such appeals are not what the Petain Government has been hoping for. Obviously, any attempt by America to feed “Petain” France can only encourage Germany to rob the occupied territories of all its

food, instead of relaxing the ban on food exports to the unoccupied part. New Ambassador The pleading for food will no doubt be one of the chief missions of M. Henry-Haye, the newly appointed French Ambassador to Washington. But M. Henry-Haye is hardly a very good representative of France la Douce. He would, in fact, be better qualified to be German Ambassador than French Ambassador. His record is little short of discreditable. He is a Fascist. As long ago as 1934 he was one of the organisers of the famous antiParliamentary riots. It was he who organised the obstructionist manoeuvres against the Daladier Government in the Chamber of Deputies while the rioting outside was growing more and more violent. Later, as mayor of Versailles, it fell to his lot to entertained our King and Queen at the Chateau during their famous visit to France in July, 1938; but he was no supporter of the Franco-British alliance. He was, on the contrary, a leading member of the Comite France-Alle-magne, the headquarters of Fifth Column activity, whose moving spirits were Abetz, Ribbentrop’s chief agent in France, and M. Fernand de Brinon, who on several occasions acted as M. Bonnet’s secret envoy to Berlin, where he conducted conversations with Ribbentrop behind the back of M. Coulondre, the regular (and pro-British and anti-Nazi) French Ambassador. The new French Ambassador to Washington will symbolise, in the eyes of the American people, not a noble country in distress, but thoss men who have for years pandered to Hitler, are responsible for her internal disruption, and are still hoping to see her submit to the inhuman “New Order” of Herr Hitler, which is the negation of all that France has stood for in the eyes of the American people and the world.