AN APPEAL TO LIVING FRANCE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 December 1940, Page 4

AN APPEAL TO LIVING FRANCE.

£ITTLE has been heard of late about, the trend of opinion in those French colonies which still acknowledge the authority of Jhe Vichy Government, but. it must be apparent to all loyal Frenchmen that General de Gaulle has stated the simple truth in his declaration that recent events have provided an opportunity for the French to re-enter the war and to share in final victory, and that: “Action by the Fren.eh fleet and by French armies in North Africa and Syria might turn the Italian defeat into a rout and so gain, for France a great triumph in the Mediterranean.”

It. is hardly to be believed tl\at this appeal and the facts on which it is based will not carry; weight in the French North and West African colonies and in Syria. Where the redemption and future liberty of their own nation are concerned, a great responsibility rests, too, on Frenchmen with regard to the remaining units of their fleet. The Vichy Government is said to have control of either two or three battleships—one of them the 36,000-ton Strasburg, armed with 13-inch guns, which escaped from Oran to Toulon. France had seven 10,000-ton cruisers and Vichy is said to retain three of these. Three are in British hands and another probably was sunk. According to one authority about 45 destroyers and some sixty submarines, x as well as a number of light cruisers must still be under Vichy control and in danger of falling into the hands ol Germany. There is no need to emphasise tin* importance ol defeating the effort in which Hitler is said now to be engaged Io gain control of the French Heel. The action by Frenchmen for which General de Gaulle has appealed would in a very important degree infln'enee and affect the balance ol' naval strength in the Mediterranean, and to some extent in other seas as well.