SABOTAGE IN FRANCE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 285, 4 December 1940, Page 5

SABOTAGE IN FRANCE

ANTI-GERMAN ACTIONS FRENCHMEN RISKING DEATH IN FACTORIES LONDON, Dec. 2. An account of how French workers are risking death by sabotaging German aircraft factories in France is given in the Daily Mail, which publishes a story written by a Frenchman who reached England. He says that sabotage is rapidly increasing in the Citroen, Gnome, Renault, and other factories where the Germans are bribing or threatening cartain Frenchmen to mingle with the workers and report the most outspoken of them. These are picked out and shot. Eight. Citroen employees thus became victims in October. New Planes Crash. Of 20 fighter planes made in a Parisian factory and tried out by the Germans, three crashed and two pilots were killed. The Germans then tried to counteract the sabotage by using French pilots, but this eeased because the Germans feared the planes would be flown to England. The article gives details of numerous incidents illustrating the French hatred of the Germans. German soldiers are ordered to keep together when out sightseeing. This is done for their own protection. Communist cells are active in Lyons and hundreds of Frenchmen in key positions in the police and administrative offices are doing their utmost to hinder the Germans and to assist escaped prisoners. British Prisoners Helped. It is officially confirmed in Vichy that the plane carrying the new High Commissioner, M. Jean Chiappe, to Syria, was lost on November 27 with all occupants. A British fighter machine-gunned it during a British and Italian naval engagement midway between Sardinia and the African coast. The plane was an Air France liner of the Farman type, it sent out an S.O.S. at 12.6 p.m., saying it had been nit and was on fire. Air and sea searches were fruitless, but pieces oi wreckage, including an apparently unused lifeboat market! Air France, were later recovered. There was another passenger in the plane beside M. Chiappe. A mssage from Vichy states that a French communique says that Cabinet dealt With various questions relating to the forthcoming transfer of the Chief of State, Marshal I-I. F. Petain, to Versailles. According to a report the Vichy Government asked the Germans what size army France would be allowed after peace was signed, and it is stated that the reply was an army of 100,000. No indication was given as to the size of the French colonial army.