VICHY AND GERMANS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 121, 24 May 1941, Page 9

VICHY AND GERMANS

Speech By Darlan

PATH CHOSEN FREELY

"France," he declared, "chooses freely the path she wishes to follow. She alone decides her present and her future. The German Chancellor has not asked me to deliver the French fleet to him. Everybody knows that I would not hand it over to anyone. Herr Hitler did not ask for any colonial territory. He did not ask me to declare war on Great Britain."

Admiral Darlan added: "Germany started the war by herself, and considers herself capable of finishing it alone against any possible combination."

From making this charge of Germany's war guilt, Admiral Darlan went on to argue that France would hold in Europe the position she had prepared for herself. France, he said, had suffered the greatest defeat in her history. For this he blamed her Governments and legislators from 1919 to 1939, and what he called the failure of her former allies.

By way of contrast, the Admiral congratulated the victorious Germans on having agreed to negotiations when they could have "obliterated France from the map of the world." He boasted also that since the principle of cooperation with Germany had been decided upon, France, in his own words, had marked by deeds her willingness! to follow this policy. (Rec. 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, May 23. In his broadcast Admiral Darlan stressed France's defeat in the war and recalled her unpreparedness in the past. He called on the French people to support the Vichy Government and its policy of collaboration with Germany started by Marshal Petain at Montoire, and said: "Hitler asked me to Berchtesgaden but the question of France "abandoning her sovereignty was not raised at any time during the conversations. It was necessary previously for France to choose between life and death and Marshal Petain chose life. Germany could have wiped France from the map last June, but did not. Germany now has agreed to negotiate with the French Government. The future of France directly depends upon the negotiations now proceeding.—U.P.A.

LONDON, May 23. In a broadcast today to the French people, Admiral," Darlan, the French Vice-Premier, tried to soothe his countrymen's anxiety about his latest talks with the enemy, but ha did not argue that Vichy's growing help to the Axis was due to Nazi pressure.

At the same time, the Germans arts taking considerable parts of cargoes which are being unshipped at Marseilles, including vital raw materials, for war purposes.