WHISPERING IN PARIS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24399, 10 September 1940, Page 8

WHISPERING IN PARIS

GERMANS PERTURBED LONDON, Aug. 22. Germans are perturbed by a proBritish whispering campaign in Paris, and* by widespread sabotage in Brittany, where the people are not impressed by Hitler's recent grant of " autonomv." According to reliable reports from France the Gestapo is busy in Paris, snooping in cafes, buses and underground railways. An order has been issued that cyclists must not ride abreast, because this is obviously an excellent method of safely and rapidly spreading news. German soldiers in Paris are grotesquely polite, and go out of their way to help old ladies with shopping baskets or to lead little children across streets, which are almost without traffic except for German officers' cars and military lorries. This is all part of the campaign to get the co-operation of the French people, but it has failed. The French are frigidly polite, but there the matter ends. In several districts of Brittany, German commandants have issued notices, "A saboteur is a coward; he works in the dark and plunges others into misery." Obviously, sabotage is directed against German supplies, otherwise local mayors would have been forced to issue notices, •'•'.- German attempts toimpress Bretons with' the magnanimity ol Hitler's grant of autonomy have met;with sardonic humour, even open mockery. Peasants throughput Brittany refuse to put on their' clocks to conform to Berlin time, resulting in an upset of transport arrangements between towns and the country, with resultant confusions in marketing and alternate gluts and shortages at unpredictable times. ' r .H ; ;