French Note To Poland On Imprisoned Citizens

Chronicle (Levin), 29 November 1949, Page 5

French Note To Poland On Imprisoned Citizens

Received Tuesday, 10.30 a.m. PARIS, Nov. 28. The French Foreign Office said tonight that a note demanding the right to interview French citizens imprisone'd by the Poles was handed to the Polish Foreign Office today by the French Amfcassador in Warsaw, M. Jean Baelen. A Government spokesman said it -was not be.ieved that the current Franco-Polish dispute would lead to an open breach of the diplomatic relations between the two countries. A French Embassy spokesman in Warsaw said that at least 16. French citizens were being held in Polish prisons, including four Embassy or Consulate olficials. The French Ambassador had not been allowed to visit them an'd the Polish Foreign Office had refused to give any information. The spokesman said that since ' the beginning of the present tension French nationals had been unable to leave Poland, not because of a refusal of permission but because of official red tape. The spokesman denied reports that M. Baelen had ordered members of his staff to resist by force attempts to arrest them. He said that most of the Embassy staff had moved into the Embassy to avoid further unpleasant incidents. In Berlin to'day, a spokesman for a party of 26 Poles expelled from France claimed that the French police used "Gestapo methods" to torture some of the Poles arrested last week. 1 The spokesman, who was an official at the Polish Embassy in .Paris, said that they were not even given an opportunity to take a toothbrush wioh them.