WOMAN’S PLACE

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21248, 19 October 1940, Page 17 (Supplement)

WOMAN’S PLACE

FRENCH GOVERNMENT’S POLICY ; The emphasis on the family, which j forms one of the foci of policy under the new French Government, is being developed along traditionally j Fascist lines. i French women, according to Jean | Ybarnegaray, Youth Minister under j the Petain Government, "will return 1 to their prime traditional purpose in ( life—being in their homes, having ! children and living only to raise ; strong useful men.” The reference to women came in j the course of an interview in which j the Youth Minister announced that , workmen in the new F rance will f be paid in proportion to the size of j their families instead of the merit- , based remuneration. j Fathers will be given preference , over bachelors in both public and | private employment in this revolu- I tionarv move to check France’s j dwindling birth rate. Many have j offered the low birth rate as a big factor in France’s military collapse. The 1940 defeat by Germany was expected to be the prelude to "one oi the greatest victories a People ever won over themselves,” the Minister declared. . “Mothers will be artisans of this secret and magnificent triumph,” M. Ybarnegaray said. A revolution in public instruction also was planned. Obligatory studies of mathematics and Latin for young women will be replaced with courses in household economy and child-rear-Women instructors have been ordered to towns and farms to tram all young women how to dress, teed, and care for babies. France lost 1,500,000 men m the World War, leaving women to fight out their own welfare to the detriment of rearing children. He charged that the system in vogue tolerated the “voluntary suppression” of some 600,000 other births, but that the new system would guarantee every French woman that “the more children she has the more aid she will receive.”