FRENCH WRITERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 May 1942, Page 4

FRENCH WRITERS

REFUSING TO TOE THE LINE. SIGNS OF OPPOSITION TO NAZIS. French newspaper writers working for Nazi-controlled or Vichy-controlled newspapers do so because they would starve if they did not. They would be marked men, and Vichy would see to it that every door was shut against them. Scrutiny of the French press of both occupied and unoccupied zones reveals many signs of opposition to Nazis and Vichy on the part of the apparently docile journalists. Sometimes examples are so glaring as to make it difficult io understand how they could have passed unnoticed. At other times they are extremely subtle. It is hard to imagine how the authorities could have failed to see the significance of a double-column title in “Le Temps” of December 25, “Dernier Noel” (“The Last Christmas”). The publication by the same newspaper of a translation of an English novel as a serial can hardly have appeared a sign for a desire for collaboration so vigorously urged by Vichy. Here indeed was an opportunity for pleasing the conquerors and furthering intellectual collaboration by printing a German book as a serial. A document recently reached London containing definite instructions to the French press not only to print certain articles, but also to print the headings supplied with them, with indications of page and position. Examination of French newspapers, carrying on the same day articles and headings identical in every respect, proved the document authentic. On the day Petain decided to dispense with ordinary forms of procedure in dealing with imprisoned members of the former government, all French newspapers carried the same stupidly ambiguous heading, “La Justice du Marechai” (the Marshal’s justice).

As soon as French journalists are given any latitude, their writings contain subtleties that escape the censor—or are winked at sympathetically by him. Thus a writer in a well-known French, daily paper followed official. instructions and produced an article along the lines laid down by the authorities. However, he added a skilfully worded last paragraph which could be read in two ways, one entirely refuting the whole argument on which the article rested. He had left himself a door of escape if challenged as to the meaning of what he had written. Just one more sign of disgust and the rising tide of revolt.