“FIGHTING FRANCE”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1942, Page 3

“FIGHTING FRANCE”

ADOPTION OF NEW NAME GENERAL. DE GAULLE’S BROADCAST. NATION WILL RISE AGAIN. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 13. The Free French movement will change its name tomorrow, which is France’s Independence Day. The movement in future will be known as “La France Combattante,” otherwise “Fighting France.” The title “Free French” tends to create a distinction between the Frenchmen who are geographically free from German bondage and the others who, whatever their sympathies may be, are under the German bondage. The British. Government has agreed to the change by the French National Committee, and on the definition that Fighting France is the union of French nationals, wherever they may be, and of French territories who join together in order to collaborate with the United Nations in the war against the Axis. The name will identify a large body of Frenchmen inside France as well as outside, as there are many in the occupied area who are putting up resistance to the Germans.

Though the Vichy Government has decreed that there shall be no national celebrations, as the day is regarded as one of mourning, patriots in unoccupied France intend to display the Tricolour and sing the Marseillaise. The Germans have forbidden the French to display flags in Paris. The names of places where processions are to be held are being circulated from underground centres in France and broadcast by the 8.8. C. General de Gaulle, broadcasting on the eve of the anniversary, said: “Tomorrow, in the so-called unoccupied zone of France, every house will be decked with the Tricolour. In each town and village French men and women will march past an appointed spot. Everywhere the ‘Marseillaise’ will ring out.

“The meaning of the demonstrations is to show that France lives on and is not submerged by her tribulations, and that she is still France, despite the Invasion of tyrants. Next to the flags and processions, the ‘Marseillaise’ will show that the country still remembers her glory, her wounds, and her tribulations.

“Finally, these flags and processions, and the ’‘Marseillaise’ will signify that France is making ready and that she secretly gathers her strength for the day when the Germans will be falling back, the Allies will be present on our soil, and the traitors will be swept aside. The entire nation will rise to drive out and punish the enemy.” J President Roosevelt, in a Bastille Day message, states: “On this anniversary, which has so deep a significance to every lover of democracy, I express the hope that the people ol France may soon again enjoy the blessings of liberty, equality and fraternity.”