EX-VICHY MINISTER NAMED

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 98, 20 January 1943, Page 5

EX-VICHY MINISTER NAMED

African Administration

LONDON, January 18.

According to reliable sources, M. Marcel I’eyroutin, the former Minister of the Interior in the Vichy Government who was reported to have left France when the Allies landed in North Africa, lias arrived from South America to take up the Governorship of Algeria, says the British United Press correspondent at the Allied headquarters. This appointment will be under the new regime which is planned in North Africa, and it is tantamount to that of civil administrator throughout North Africa. “It looks as though the stage is cleared for a new deal in French North African politics,” says Charles Collingwood, of the Columbia Broadcasting System. “There are signs that a thorough-going re-exam-ination of Allied policy is on the way. Already a new firmness and decision are evident in our handling of affairs here. Method With Prisoners. “For instance, we are no longer taking the word of French politicians that all the political prisoners are free. We have set up a commission headed by the British and American consuls-general at Algiers. This commission is going to find out where political prisoners are and why they are imprisoned, and get them out; and when the commission says this man or that man is to be freed there will be no nonsense about advising or urging the proper French authorities; the man is just released. r _ .. "The other day Mr. MacMillan, British Resident. Minister here, said unequivocally this Government in North Africa is only a provisional one; and on Saturday we were told in official circles that General Eisenhower, as commander-in-chief, still has complete authority in North Africa. But what is more important than this sign of firmness is that we seem finally to be deciding just what we want to do about French Africa. 1' rom the day we put Darlan in power here our policy suffered, because we had no plan, no picture of what we wanted to de. with French Africa. Today it seems that such a plan is being hammered out.”