PRESSURE ON VICHY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1940, Page 6

PRESSURE ON VICHY

CiOVERNMENT MAY MOVE TO AFRICA TROOPS SAID TO HAVE EMBARKED. BROADCAST BY DE GAULLE. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright i LONDON, December 29. The Lisbon eorresponilenl. oF the “Daily Telegraph’’ says that German forces are reported to be on the point of invading unoccupied France and planes are waiting at Vichy to convey Marshal Petain and his Government Io Africa should Germany move. Several independent sources confirm reports of the embarkation of French troops at Marseilles for Morocco and Tunisia. The German radio says that two influential members of the French Government who were going to Morocco from Vichy aboard a plane were shot down at La Linea, Spain, on December 25.

DARLAN’S REPORT DISCUSSED BY CABINET. (Received This Day 11 a.m.) VICHY, December 29. The official radio announced that Cabinet discussed the report Admiral Darlan brought from Paris and arrived at certain decisions regarding it. The Vichy Cabinet is reported to have adjourned on Saturday night without having reached a decision. Its discussions will be continued today or on Tuesday. Secrecy is being maintained but it is understood that the Cabinet discussed matters of great importance after hearing the report of Admiral Darlan on his visit to Paris, where he met a “high German personage.” One report says Marshal Petain has refused a German proposal for an alliance. General de Gaulle, in a broadcast, announced his readiness to place the Free French forces at the disposal of the French Government if it decided to renew the struggle. He said that if the French armies in North Africa and Syria and the French fleet were fighting for France now, the battle of the Mediterranean would end immediately with a great French victory.