REACTION IN BERLIN

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

REACTION IN BERLIN

BLACKMAIL ATTEMPT

UNREST DISCLOSED

LONDON, May 23.

According to the German wireless,, diplomatic circles in Vichy have described the statement made yesterday, by Mr. Anthony Eden as "a new attempt at blackmail which will not distract the Vichy Government from thepath it has chosen." The Free French agency, on the otherhand, reports efforts by Frenchmen, themselves to do the same thing. These messages tell of violent popular demonstrations against Admiral Darlaav when he visited Brittany a few weeks: ago to confer with the German military authorities. CURFEW ORDERED. The same agency says that the Ger* man authorities have ordered a curfew in many towns and villages because the letter V, standing for victory of the anti-Nazi forces, has been appearing more and more on walls in the streets. The Secret Front of Resistance has also been encouraged in a manifesto to the workers of France, issued by French Socialists and trade unionists now in Britain.

Where Admiral Darlan argues that the armistice saved the French empire, this manifesto declares that the men. of Vichy are handing the empire over to the enemy, just as they have alreadyhanded over most of France. It declares that Vichy is seeking to drag France back into the war on the side of Hitler's Germany, and that the men of Vichy have betrayed their country, overthrown the Republic, strangled the freedom of Frenchmen, and brought them starvation and poverty.