FRANCE TAKES STEPS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 84, 6 October 1938, Page 28

FRANCE TAKES STEPS

COUNTER-ESPIONAGE WORK

Counter-espionage services in France are to be strengthened, said the "Daily Telegraph and Morning Post" recently. This was shown in a note circulated by M. Sarraut, Minister of the Interior, to the mobile police, frontier guards, and all concerned in the control of foreigners entering France either for temporary or permanent residence. The note classifies the new scheme as follows:— Reinforcement of the mobile police by the creation of four new brigades,! whose headquarters will be at Angers, Annecy, Nice, and Pau; no extra precautions are considered necessary at places of entry for British, American, or Belgian visitors. Strengthening of the special frontier police by the appointment of 150 additional inspectors, provided with light motor-cars and motor-cycles, to prevent undesirables from entering France. i Strengthening of counter-espionage ' services in- the national interest, particularly the police of the air, and control of secret wireless transmitting stations. . Augmentation of the administrative police dealing with foreigners whose political and social activities on French soil are liable to disturb public order. It is pointed out that over 3,000,000 foreigners live in French territory, and the Government has misgivings about a large number of them. The new arrangements haye been made necessary by the mass influx of foreigners seeking asylum, but they in no way hamper tourist traffic or inconvenience desirable foreign residents. Their object is, to sort out the desirables from the undesirables.