GERMS OF REVOLT

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21280, 26 November 1940, Page 7

GERMS OF REVOLT

FRANCE NEEDS LEADER GERMAN RUTHLESSNESS CANNOT GET TO DE GAULLE (Times Air Mail Service.) LONDON, Oct. 25. All that the French in Petain’s France need now is a leader on the spot to start the revolt that is now simmering. I left Unoccupied France last week. There were signs that the people were recovering from the stupor that succeeded the panic flight of May and June, states the Lisbon correspondent of the Evening Standard. People said in whispers they hoped the British would hold out. They listened to de Gaulle on the radio. I met everywhere officers and men who declared openly their intention to join the Free French movement if they could. But that is the whole question—if they could. To get out of France for a man of military age is now all but impossible. He may get as far as North Africa, but a passage from there to Portugal costs up to 50.000 francs. Gestapo Forestall Resistance Within France passive resistance is reported to be beginning, but the penalty is heavy and the Gestapo have their own methods of dealing with incipient revolt. Yet those who know the French are wondering how long they will stand it; how long the newspapers will echo the Government’s denunciation of all those who, at peril of their lives, oppose the German demands. There have already been a large number of incidents, such as sentries being- shot and stones thrown at German parades. The offenders are quickly punished, but there will be more and more of these incidents as food queues grow longer and the cost of defeat in cash as well as in pride becomes more and more obvious. Bled Whit* The figure of 20,000,000 marks daily which Germany has fixed as the price of the army of occupation —it is no longer translatable into English money—to be paid by France is so monstrous in French eyes that it converts the hope that England will hold out into more than a pious expression. And that is only the official figure. With increasing thoroughness untenanted and occupied houses in Paris and Northern France are being emptied of their contents. The shops were long ago “ sold out.” The Gestapo are taking note of the contents of everyone’s deposit box. Banks hold no more secrets. Everyone’s property and capacity to pay is being noted down, even to the number of pigs and chickens in unoccupied France. There is no doubt now what is intended. France is being bled white—hltfr^than she ever attempted to bleed Germany. If Petain’s dream of a land of peasants is realised, it will be -.,?i. land of P easa nts without pigs. When the tide of the war changes even a fraction, the lethargy that has characterised the Petain-Laval regime will change overnight, at whatever cost to those who have the courage to begin the movement.