FRENCH MOVE IN HANOI

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27395, 7 July 1954, Page 12

FRENCH MOVE IN HANOI

Poster to Combat

Pessimism

<Rec. 9 pan.) HANOI, July 6. Official posters appeared in Hanoi streets yesterday appealing to French and Vietnamese to maintain calm during the Vietminh threat to the city. “The French and Vietnamese Battle Corps is safe. It can and’will fight,” the posters said.

The posters have been issued to combat the wave of pessimism which has spread through this usually imperturbable city of 300,000 inhabitants, since the evacuation of the southern zone Die Red river delta last week. Concern has grown particularly since Phuly, a bastion city on the western edge of the delta, was abandoned on Saturday. A French High Command spokesman said that French troops from Phuly had now fallen back to a point 22 miles south of Hanoi. Some authorities feel that the danger to the French in the city comes not so much from the Vietminh as from those Vietnamese who hitherto have been loyal friends of the French. Attitude of Refugees The French authorities are worried over the attitude of more than 200,000 civilians evacuated from the southern delta, who refused to live under communism.

Many of these refugees are living in bad conditions in .camps south of Hanoi, and some of them feel that the French Army let them down after many promises to defend their homes against the Communists. The poster issued yesterday had sketches of an open hand and a clenched fist, with the slogan: “Our hand is opened sincerely for negotiations, but our fist is closed resolutely for battle.”

It emphasised that the French evacuated the southern zone of the delta with the agreement of the Vietnamese Government, and continued: “If the Vietminh break the negotiations at Geneva and want to continue the battle we shall await them on surer ground.’’ The poster also promised better conditions for the refugees.