Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1943. POLITICS AND WAR IN FRENCH AFRICA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 January 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1943. POLITICS AND WAR IN FRENCH AFRICA.

lias been called the political situation in French North Africa has its genuinely difficult aspects, which may, call for very careful handling, but it would be an unmixed tragedy, and one opening poor prospects for the future, if Britain and the United States allowed differences of opinion to arise between them in their dealing with any of the questions involved. It must be hoped that any possibility! of such differences will be removed speedily, but more may be needed to that end than the statement by the British Minister of Information, Mr Brendan Bracken, which was reported yesterday.

As far as it went, that statement, was satisfactory. It embodied an assurance that neither the British Government nor the United States Government was trying to oppose the projected meeting between General de Gaulle and General Giraud, but that the opposite was true, and a declaration that there was no truth in suggestions that Britain was backing General de Gaulle as a future leader of France and that the United States was backing General Giraud. What is needed, however, is a joint and unqualified declaration by the two Eng-lish-speaking Governments that they will accept the co-opera-tion -of Frenchmen sincerely intent on action against the common enemy, but that Britain and the United States will both refuse absolutely to commit themselves to support General de Gaulle, General Giraud or anyone else as the future leader of France.

A basis for complete Anglo-American agreement should be found in the declaration made last month by President Roosevelt that it is for the people of France, when they are again free to act on their own behalf, to choose their leaders and determine their political future. Britain and the United States could take up no other attitude than this without betraying the principles for which they stand and in support of which they are now fighting.

Any existing uncertainty should be cleared up by an AngloAmerican statement on the lines here suggested. As to the immediate conditions in which French co-operation in North Africa is to be developed a good deal no doubt must be left to the discretion of the Allied Commander-in-Chief, General Eisenhower, to whom special authority in the matter has been delegated. Whether, however, there has been too easy an acceptance, and retention in high office in North Africa, of men who were closely identified with the Vichy regime is a question that should be examined and dealt with on its merits. Mr Bracken’s statement ought to make an end of whatever suspicions have been entertained in the United States that Britain is prepared to support any political pretensions General de Gaulle may entertain, but if necessary it should be made fully and finally clear that Britain will give no support of that kind to General de Gaulle or anyone else. '