DANGEROUS DARLAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 July 1941, Page 5

DANGEROUS DARLAN

POSSIBILITIES OF A COUP D’ETAT. MARSHAL PETAIN’S POSITION. Advices reaching England from France repeat the warning, "Watch Darlan.” Events are shaping themselves just as they would were a coup d'etat un-i der contemplation. Visits from Vichy to Paris are becoming more frequent. Taking a leaf from the book of his German masters, the Admiral may well suddenly place his country-men before a "fait accompli" and the venerable Marshal Petain go the way of a Hindenburg, weighed down with honours and years, the centre of admiration and affection, but a cypher. It must not be forgotten that Darlan is more than foreign minister; he is also minister for the interior. This means that\ he can appoint prefects, chiefs of police. He can put. and has put, friends just where he wants them. As a navy mt/n he has an advantage over the army men. He has not suffered defeat. He is ambitious, and his ambition may well lead him on to acts that will only plunge his country into further disaster. The French point out how he has tried by every possible means to create “incidents" which will place England in the light of an aggressor. Contempt for the real feelings of his countrymen may make him ignore those feelings and attempt to throw Franco into the struggle on the side of Germany.

It must not be forgotten, our French friends say that there is a small, desperate band of Frenchmen who are gambling with their lives, for whom the defeat of Hitler means facing the firing squad. Such men will go to any lengths.