FRANCE & ITALY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 October 1943, Page 6

FRANCE & ITALY

LIKELY TO BE FRIENDLY . AGAIN. WITH MUSSOLINI REMOVED. The French and the Italians are Lat■’ins. In general ways of thought they have much in common. Both of them have nothing in common with the Germans. Their civilisation, has issued from the same source, and the great movements in one country have-always found their echo in the other. Real estrangement only came with the advent of Mussolini, who did everything he could to separate the two peoples, because his regime was so opposed to the democratic regime of France that he could brook no criticism. Those who remember France previous to the last war remember the tremendous vogue the Italian poet Gabriel d’Annunzio, had in that country.

It was strange to witness how at the time of the application of sanctions when Italy attacked Abyssinia, though everyone felt Italy was in no wise ’justified in contravening the rules of the League of Nations and attacking another member, there was yet I’eluctance to apply the prescribed sanctions.

It was the Italians who £were constantly provoking the French. Much irritation was caused by the naming of two of the then latest types of hydroplanes “Nice” and “Savoy,” the reminder of the claim to' Savoy and Nice. The Italians also for years published a paper called the “Voice of Corsica,” purporting to be a plea for Corsican aspirations to become part of Italy! Anyone who has visited Corsica knows that the Corsicans never had any love for the Italians. Once when an Italian warship and a French warship were passing through the Suez Canal, insults hurled at one another by Italian and Corsican sailors nearly led to firing. The two countries were far from the days when Neapolitan songs were heard on the Boulevards of Paris and a popular sentimental air was “Elie est de I’ltalie.” The French were always fairer to the Italians than the Italians were to the French. How will the new France react in regard to Italy when the Axis is beaten? The stab in the back will be difficult to forgive, but it was Mussolini more than Italy that dealt the blow to the “sister nation.” There is a great bond of sympathy between Latins, and with an Italy thinking in terms of democracy and not domination there is little doubt that old sores will soon be healed. The real French and the real Italians just cannot hate one another.