LAST CHANCE FOR PETAIN

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 235, 1 July 1944, Page 7

LAST CHANCE FOR PETAIN

Dissolve Regime And Aid Captives LONDON, June 29. . The French Provisional Government at Algiers has radioed an appeal to Marshal Petain to help save the lives of captured Frenchmen who have helped the Allies. They have asked him to dissolve the Vichy puppet regime, thus rendering void Article 10 of tho 1940 Armistice Convention. Under Article 10 the Germans are entitled to put to death any Frenchmen who take up arms against them. The French Provisional Government claims that captured members of the French resistance forces should be given the rights of prisoners of war. A leading Frenchman in London said : ■ “This is Petain’s last chance. If he refuses to co-operate in saving French prisoners he will be judged after the war as mercilessly as the other quislings.” The London correspondent of the New York newspaper “P.M.” says the French Provisional Government intends to introduce conscription in liberated Ftance and that General de Gaulle intends to create a new army of liberation inside ’ France.

The Germans used bombers and fighters, four-inch guns, and mortars in a big battle against French forces of the interior in the’ central mountains of France, where the partisans are esti- t mated to number upward of 20,000. state reports reaching London. The French withstood the attack ami forced the Germans to withdraw, leaving 200 dead and 400 wounded. This section of the French forces of the interior has been raiding isolated German garrisons since D-day, but this is their first big battle.

NEARLY COMPLETE Anglo-French Agreement

(British Official Wireless.) (Received. June 30, 7 p.m. ) RUGBY, June 29.

. Anglo-French agreements on mutual) aid and civil administration in liberated' territory, including the currency question, are nearly ready. When all the details are settled American views will be sought, and eventually it is hoped that similar agreements will be concluded between the French and American Governments.

Meanwhile it is intended, after Am-: erican concurrence is obtained, that the; Anglo-i French agreements should be Put into force. At present the front is mostly less than 20 miles from the coast, and all the land occupied is a military zone, under the direct responsibility of the military commanders'. 'Not till there art? large forward areas behind the front will the administration be wholly French, under the direct control of the Provisional Government No difficulties seem to have arisen either in negotiating the agreements or in making preliminary arrangements in the beach-head districts so far occupied.