French Women At War

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 40, 29 March 1940, Page 37

French Women At War

Work In Factory, Farm And Cafe

es again, as often in the past, the women of France are slaving for their country. In the Great War, Marshall Joffre remarked that "if all the women now at work in France were to stop work for even 20 minutes," he would be defeated. Nowadays, they labour chiefly at three important activities -- agriculture, industry, and the social services. Never were the heroic qualities of French women put to a more ‘severe test than at the outbreak of what the Americans call World War II. Five million Frenchmen are now in uniform-and that has left a pretty large gap in the national life. In England, war work on the home front is something for which debutantes and factory girls compete: in France it has become the inevitable lot of the women. In the fields of France, Madame tucks up her black skirt, puts on sturdy sabots and head cloth, and in company with thousands of other women, children and old men, ploughs, sows, and brings in the harvest. In Munition Factories Unlike the streets of London, the streets of Paris sport no chic warworkers’ uniforms for women. But though they are not seen on the streets, thousands of Frenchwomen are in uniform. Some, with navy-blue cowls on their heads, hurry about in the dim blue light of immense factories, carrying great hunks of what looks like pastry. On the walls, such signs as ONE MISTAKE CAN BRING DISASTER, remind one that the harmless looking substance is gunpowder in the making; if the women did not wear cowls they would go home at night with inflammable hair. There are others with clean white coats, brightly coloured nails and perfect manicures-the midinettes who no longer stitch gowns, but who ensemble with nimble fingers the delicate wiring of wireless sets for aeroplanes and ships. There are the white jumpers of the aeroplane workers and the aprons of the fuse-makers who piece together the intricate detonators of bombs and shells. Just how many women are engaged in the French armament industry is a military secret. Famous Names Perhaps the best demonstration of France’s effort lies not in the numbers of anonymous women workers, but in the big names of some of those who are engaged, with little ostentation, in wartime duties. They work in such services as Les Déjeuners des Lettres et de la Musique, a group of women who give meals to artistic people left jobless by

the war. One of the most celebrated women war-workers, after the President’s wife (Madame Albert Lebrun), is Eve Curie, the brilliant daughter of radium’s discoverers, Pierre and Marie Curie. The French Minister of-Informa-tion (and novelist-playwright), . Jean Giraudoux, showed sure instinct when he chose Mile. Curie to head the feminine section in his Information Commissariat. " Godmothers " of Many Jeanne Reynaud, wife of the French Minister, is another engaged in womanly duties — she recently flew to North Africa to deliver a series of propaganda lectures. The Hon. Mrs.. Reginald (" Daisy") Fellowes, daughter of a French duke, and onetime Princess de Broglie and friend of the Duchess of Windsor, declared herself the marraine or "godmother" not of one French soldier--the usual thing-but of an entire battalion of Chasseurs Alpins. She sends them warm English blankets and many another luxury. Recently when she visited them, to show their gratitude they dashed up among snowy crags and shot chamois for her lunch. Beautiful marraine of two hundred French aviators is Mme. Gabrielle ("Coco") Chanel, who now patridtically wears only red, white and blue. Coco’s aviators receive from her the finest English pullovers, stockings and gloves, each neatly stamped " Chanel." But her famed Paris style shop is closed. However, Madame Jeanne Lanvin, another great couturiére, continues to produce her svelte creations, as well as fancy uniforms for high-ranking French officers, Mistinguett Carries On Marraine for soldier and civilian alike in this war as in the last is 64-year-old, fog-horn-voiced Milistinguett, the "hot grandmammy " of the Folies Bergére and Casino de Paris. "Mees" still has legs as shapely as any that ever graced a stage, but since she no longer has the strength to do her Apache dances under her own power, she is heaved about in her act by two powerful youths. She, like many another famous singer, dancer or actor now in Paris, is "doing her bit."