PETAIN A PRISONER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 276, 22 November 1943, Page 5

PETAIN A PRISONER

REFUSAL TO BROADCAST Recd. 8.30 p.m. London, oNv. 20. Marshal Petain is reported to be a prisoner in his chateau, surrounded by pro-Germam armed police ami cut off from members of his Cabinet, says the Geneva correspondent of the Daily Express. Petain considers his position similar to that of the King of the Belgians. Another' report says a number of Petain's close friends, including throe generals, were arrested. The Daily Telegraph’s Beinc correspondent reports that the Germans are hurriedly preparing to take over full control in the event of the whole VicYy organisation collapsing. Paris newspapers coupled Petain’s failure to broadcast on November 13 with a visit the same night to his apartment of the German Ambassador to Vichy, Von Nida, who, with navais help, demanded that Petai-n's sieech should be rewritten. Petain in the substituted speech was to have said that, as Laval's police were unable to keep order, he invited the Germans to co-operate in police work and they consented. Petain refused to read the new speech and told Von Nidda he would not give full approval to the Gestapo for the occupation and to the police for mass executions and arrests, which the Germans considered necessary. Yesterday Swiss newspapers published what purports to be the text of the speech Petain was to have made. If it really is the text, it is not surprising that the Marshal was not allowed to give it, for Petain proposed, if the story is true, to give France a new constitution, to renounce all unconstitutional acts adopted since the fall of France, and also to renounce Laval as his successor.

Other reports say that Petain refused Io speak as a protest against the German demand that 'he should give approval for the Gestapo to carry out mass arrests and exdbutions as a reprisal against terrorism.