FRENCH LABOUR FOR GERMANY.

Evening Star, Issue 24292, 5 September 1942, Page 4

FRENCH LABOUR FOR GERMANY.

In an address to the French Legion Marshal Potain, now a truly pathetic figure, declared that many Frenchmen, under a cloak of patriotism, were striving for revolt. This veteran soldier, who was so notable a figure in the last war, is a victim of pessimism and disillusionment. The past is dead, he says, and under the direction of the sinister and treacherous Laval, his Government will pursue the “ accomplishment of the national revolution.” This means, presumably, co-operation with and submission to Germany. Now we aro informed from Paris that Gauleiter Bauckel has ordered a 54-hour week for workers in the occupied territories, bringing non-German workers into lino with German workers in Germany. No effort is being spared by the Nazis to obtain recruits from outside their own country in order to replace the men called for military service. All kinds of pressure are being applied. One method is to promote unemployment in the conquered countries by withholding deliveries of coal to factories in order to induce the unemployed to take work in Germany. These unfortunate people have been left no alternative but to starve or to leave their own lands and accept the employment offered, for which glowing terms have been promised, but many take the harder way, resenting even any appearance of collaboration with Germany. Another way in which pressure is being applied is to use French prisoners of war m Germany as pawns, Laval insisting that the release of prisoners would depend upon the number of French workmen ready to take their place in the Gorman factories. There is canning in this method, too. for the French prisoners released would be in exchange for' skilled operatives who have become indispensable to the Nazi war machine. German industrial and agricultural operations have become dependent on foreign slave labour for their normal functioning. This will create a difficult problem once the Nazis are in military difficulties, for the imported workers are mostly resentful and hostile, and will take opportunities for revenge when they present themselves.