NO FURTHER MEETING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 June 1943, Page 3

NO FURTHER MEETING

BETWEEN FRENCH LEADERS NEWS VACUUM IN ALGIERS PRESS HEAVILY CENSORED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, June 13. There has been no further meeting between Generals de Gaulle and Giraud, though both have been in contact with other members of the French Committee of National Liberation, particularly General Catroux. Three additional members of the committee have arrived in Algiers from London. They are MM. Peleven, Dietholm, and Tixier. Another member, M. Bonnet, is on his way from America.

Twenty Communist Deputies who have been released from prison have issued a statement expressing uneasiness concerning the deadlock. They declare: “France wants deeds. The French people have had enough of personal power, autocracy and tyranny. They no longer want a Fuehrer, they want a Republic—a rejuvenated better constructed, and more democratic Republic. For the good name of France it is essential to translate immediately into deeds the solemn, promises which have been made by the Committee." Reuter’s Algiers correspondent says it is difficult for the outer world to realise the seclusion of Algiers. It must be remembered that the Algiers public generally is entirely ignorant of world opinion, and the atmosphere resembles the complacency in which France lived early in 1940. The Press censorship, to which has been attributed much of the blame for the downfall of France, continues in Algiers, and blank spaces in the newspapers are filled up with drawings. The censors, who are often the same as under the Vichy regime, continue to follow the same principles.

Not a line of world Press comment on the present deadlock has been allowed to appear in the local Press. Not a single dispatch sent by British and American correspondents has been reproduced in Algiers The public live in a news vacuum, and have no idea of the feeling aroused abroad by Vichy’s subservience to Hitler. Generals de Gaulle and Giraud today both broadcast messages from Algiers in celebration of United Nations Day. General de Gaulle said: “United France takes her place besides the British Empire, America, Russia and their allies, turns to her friends for suport and arms. France is determined to subordinate everything to the war of liberation and renovation.” General Giraud said: “The Tunisian victory was a great victory of the United Nations, and I express the gratitude of France to the British and American soldiers, the New Zealanders who turned the Mareth Line, the Australians of the desert battle, the South Africans of the Eighth Army, and the sailors of all the Allied navies. The French colours are again flying at the side of those of the United Nations, and thus it will be to the very end—to the supreme moment when the enemy is crushed. They will go on to Rome, to Berlin, and to Tokio.”