FRANCE AND BRITAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 299, 19 December 1945, Page 5

FRANCE AND BRITAIN

TIES BECOME CLOSER MENDING OF RELATIONS SOVIET-U.S. DIFFERENCES A FACTOR (Special Correspondent—N.Z.P.A.l Reed. 7 p.m. London. Dec. 18 Though the terms ot the Anglo. French agreement on the futuie of their trooos in the Levant and on Middle East policy generally have noi yet been published, there has been a ready welcome to. the evident fact that Franco-British relations are mending.

H is remarked that relations between the two countries have improved so much during the past few months that the conclusion, early in 1916, of a new trca.y of alliance between then: is regarded in some London circles as not only possible, but highly probable. It is reported from Paris that the Levant argeenient provides for the withdrawal of British troops from Syria to Palestine, and of French troops to Lebanon, the latter to remain there until security arrangements for the area are decided upon by the United Nations. Since it is hoped the United Nations will come into active existence before long, the Flench military sojourn in Lebanon should perhaps be no longer than the time it would take to carry out full evacuation. But so long as the United Nations is an uncertain fixture there is no certainty in the Levantine mind.

The Agreement, it is remarked, seems to point to an increase of French troops within the small Republic with no concurrent increase in British, and no immediate prospect of methodical withdrawal from the whole of the Levant zone envisaged in the joint Anglo-French communique that described, in btoad terms, the objects of the Anglo-French agreement. French troops are in fact small, and only a matter of a few contingents from Syria will go to swell the French ranks in Lebanon, themselves less than 10,000. Their presence, it is thought, should not prejudice any future arrangements with the Levant States, provided the British and French are harmonising policies that have as their object peaceful development of the whole Middle East.

While the Levant agreement is evidence of a friendlier spirit between France and Britain, it is reported that alrr.vt equally notable is the .anxiety of the British Government to avoid giving offence to the French through the latters’ exclusion from the Moscow talks, and an understanding of Britain’s po.iticn in the matter is revealed by General de Gaulle in his public comments about the “Big Three" meeting. The British Government, it is understood, was very frank in acquainting the French Government with lhe steps which led up to the Moscow meeting, and the reasons why it was considered necessary to revert to “Big Three" meetings in order to get a greater measure of reality in.o deliberations of more widely based gatherings—in particular those'ot the United Nations Organisation. It also made clear to the French that it the question of Allied control in Germany was discussed during the Moscow talks Britain would not be a party to any decisions taken there, or elsewhere, to which France was not a willing parly. De Gaulle, on his part, indicated that he regarded the Moscow meeting as an attempt to solve what was primarily a Soviet-American quarrel. It has'no. gone without notice, both in London and Paris, that there is a tendency towards “polari.ation” of world affairs, with Moscow and Washington exerting opposite attractions. This has helped to renew old ties between France and Britain. Being European Powers, they are more deeply and more immediately concerned with Europe's future than are tre U.S.A, and the U.S.STI.