Ministry of' Information Explains Not Intention of HM, Government to Fight Frenchmen Loyal to Vichy London, Sept. 26.
LIIED forces are now being withdrawn from the Dakar region in order to save the lives of Frenchmen.
The circumstances which have led (o their withdrawal are explained in an announcement released by the Ministry of Information.
It had never been the intention of the British Government, it states, to enter into serious warlike operations against those Frenchmen who felt it thei Government. duty to obey the commands of the Vichy "General Charles de Gaulle had ood reason to believe from informa ion which reached him that a large proportion of the French population of Senegal supported the free French movement and would welcome his arrival, and' that a. similar' situation might be established there to that Which exists in French Equatorial "He therefore proposed to His 'Majesty's Government that he should proceed there with some troops at his disposal, with the goodwill and support of Great' Britain,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.