France replied today to Italy's Note of December 17 denouncing the Laval-'Mussolini accords signed early in 1035. The reply was handed to Count Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, by M. Andre Franco Poncet, French Ambassador here.
The French Note refutes all argu ments put forward by Italy as reasons for denunciation of the 1935 agreement, it was learned from the most reliable sources. Paris denies responsibility If the instruments of ratification have not been exchanged, pointing out that the French Parliament ratified the accords, Furthermore, Paris asserts that the accords have been partly enforced as 2,800 securities of the Djibouti-Addis Abbaba Railway have been transferred to, and accepted by Italy.
Another argument put forward here was that Franco never opened the negotiations provided for in the 1935 accords as due to lead ty the replacement of the 1896 Convention, which settled the status of Italian settlers in Tunisia. To this, Paris veptied delays in the settlement of the Tunis-jan problem "have not. all been caused by France atone."
Finally, Taly alleged that Prance violated the spirit of the 1935 pact when she put into effect sanction against Rome during the Ethiopian campaign. Paris answers that. its attitude during the Ttalo-Ethiopian conflict was never inconsistent with either the spirit or the letter of the Laval Mussolini accords The sensational report that the allan authorities in Abyssinia are threatening to march on Djibouti (capital of French Somaliland) 1 published by "Pertinax" in the Right Centre newspaper "L/Ordre."
The report says that the Italian authorities are proclaiming that it is} only. a question of time before they march there and the "French are] thrown Into the sea." Talian troop movements are reported in the journal, for example, the Askaris are be-Ing sent to west' Abyssinia to relieve contingents of the Gallas, who are being sent east. Roads, seemingly intended for military transport, are said to have been built from Assab to the French frontier.
fe is pointed out that the French have only numerically weak detachments at Djibouti, whereas the Tallans have 90,000 soldiers and 130,- 000 white and 150,000 native labourors there, although 185 miles of de-sort separate them from the Prench colony.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.