GHOST PARLIAMENT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 271, 16 November 1943, Page 5

GHOST PARLIAMENT

FRANCES FOSi-WAR ROLE

Recd. 6 p.m. London, Nov. 10. France thinks that any European settlement without her would not be a good settlement, and has a deep reeling that failure to recognise ner rights and dignity would, be an injustice and a mistake. This was stated by General de Gaulle at the first meeting of France's ghost parliament, the Provisional Consultative Assembly. at which 47 ot the 84 members were present, absentees being in France or not arrived. General de Gaulle said that the Committee of National Liberation claimed the right to present with the great nations the solutions she judged necessary for the settlement of the war and the organisation of the postwar world. She must resume her great international role. "The liberated French Empire has brought all its resources into the war," he said. “Half a million men wait impatiently to-day to measure their force against the enemy. French resistance everywhere is bitter and efficient. It exists in the factories and in the fields, in offices and schools, and in the streets. "France to-morrow will ask that her national sovereignty shall be exercised in its entirety, unhampered by intrigue or corrupt pressure, or by private interests. This meeting is the resurrection of French representative institutions. France demands a regime in which production and industry will be under the control of the people.’’ General Giraud throughout General de Gaulle's speech sat motionless, but at the close applauded loudly with assembly and shook hands with General de Gaulle.