FRANCE SEETHING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 January 1942, Page 4

FRANCE SEETHING

WITH BITTERNESS & HATE AGAINST NAZIS.

EXTRACTS FROM SPECIAL REPORTS.

When M. Berthelot, Vichy Minister of Communications, visited the north of France recently he questioned the mayor of a large town about local morale.

“Monsieur le Ministre,” replied the Mayor, “bombs rain on our heads, and the harder they rain the happier we feel. Each bomb brings our liberation nearer.”

Managers of mines in the north of France during the same visit told the Vichy minister that 95 to 99 per cent of the population were for General de Gaulle.

An eye-witness reports that Germans often substitute British markings on destroyed German planes to create the impression .that their losses are less than ours.

Aire-sur-la-Lys has been subjected to a heavy fine because the population tried to hide a British pilot who had baled out. Roubaix was recently fined 5,000,000 francs as a result of the mysterious killing of two Germans. As 'added punishment, a 5 p.m. curfew (3 p.m. on Sundays) was imposed. The German officer commanding the region received a note warning him that the Germans would get tired of reprisals before the French.

At Hochfelden, in Alsace, German military police were beaten up by the crowd on July 14, Bastille Day, by B patriotic French demonstrators. For this 160 young men were sent to concentration camps, singing the “Marseillaise” as they went to the station.

Two Frenchmen have been shot at Ozeville, in the north of France, for trying to escape with 15 young French air cadets. The 15 cadets were sentenced to life imprisonment at Dusseldorf, They also sang the “Marseillaise” during their trial.