TOPICS OF THE DAY
Future of France The Petain Government will try to turn French anger and French shame against us, writes D. W. Brogan in the Spectator. It will, at first, have some success. But its success is bound to be limited. Even if all France, or the majority of Frenchmen, had no higher ideals than those of M. Laval or M. Deat (it is unfair to lump the two together, but for the moment they are allies or accomplices), the necessities of the war, if we hold out, will force the Germans to strip France of that wealth, that internal security, that rest, that its present governors have foolishly thought to buy at such a price. The vision that may haunt some French minds of France as a willing partner in a Fascist Europe is baseless. Fascism needs some spiritual food, it needs the psychological support of patriotism. What can the Petain Government do to supply that need? Against it speaks the most varied patriotic tradition in Europe: Joan of arc and Richelieu, Danton and Gambetta, Foch and Clemenceau. Even the Bourbon Restoration of 1814 and 1815 had more to offer French sentiment that that. Louis XVIII bore only the shadow of the great name, but there had been the great name.
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Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21225, 23 September 1940, Page 6
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214TOPICS OF THE DAY Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21225, 23 September 1940, Page 6
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