MARSHAL PETAIN’S GLOOM

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21242, 12 October 1940, Page 6

MARSHAL PETAIN’S GLOOM

Marshal Petain has broken a long silence, only to inform the people of France that “ the future is gloomy.” Indeed, from his point of view, what cheer could he possibly give his people? It is as well for France that there are others not bowed down with a sense of defeatism and who are actively working for the liberation of France from the thralldom which has descended upon it. General de Gaulle and his Free Frenchmen present a very different front to the world. The gloom that surrounds Petain does not render them incapable of looking into the future with something more than despair in their hearts.

Rather pathetically, Petain has announced a plan for the government of France. The French regime, he said, “ would be national in its foreign policy, hierarchical in its internal policy and controlled in its economy.” Precisely what that means could probably be explained only by Hitler, for despite Petain’s claim that the Vichy Government has “ not lost its independence of speech or its care for the national interests,” it is clear to the world that so long as Hitler is in the saddle, that Government will obey his orders, and his alone. No doubt Hitler will leave Petain to attempt to solve the problem of rehabilitating millions of soldiers and refugees so that they might be in a position to render more aid to Germany, but Hitler will see to it that all measures for the designing of France’s political future have his approval or veto. It must be becoming increasingly clear to Petain that France made its greatest mistake, after its military defeat, by entering into any sort of armistice terms with the Germans. Poland, Holland and other countries did not find it necessary or wise to do so, and their future course has been simplified accordingly. Petain has attempted to hunt with the hounds and run with the hare, and the further he goes the more complicated does his position become. It is not surprising that he regards the future as gloomy. In attempting to rebuild France on Nazi lines he is merely storing up trouble which will eventually overwhelm him. The vast majority of Frenchmen are still not Hitlerites.