FRENCH ASKED TO EXPLAIN

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24899, 12 June 1946, Page 7

FRENCH ASKED TO EXPLAIN

Reuter’s correspondent in Paris reported that British Embassy officials called at the French Foreign Office and officially asked for an explanation about the Grand Mufti’s reported departure from France. The French were unable to offer a definite explanation. They said that an inquiry was in progress. The current theory said the correspondent, is that the Grand Mufti left France in the guise of a member of one of the Arab missions travelling, between Paris and the Middle East. The Grand Mufti was recently ill, or feigned illness, and he might have taken the opportunity to shave off his beard.

The Paris newspaper “Le Monde,” which often reflects Foreign Office opinion, reported that the Grand Mufti left France among the entourage of King Feisal of Iraq, who travelled from Calais to England in a British destroyer. The Grand Mufti was reported to have left England by aeroP1 “Le Monde" said that neither the British nor the French really wanted to prevent the Grand Mufti leaving France. It added that the area in which the Grand Mufti lived, the Forest of Marly, was “a veritable British camp with observation toweru and barracks.”