The attempted assassination of M. Pierre Laval serves to draw attention to the acute situation which has recently developed in France. For some time past, it has been apparent that, while some French leaders were all out for collaboration with their Ger-than conquerors, the ordinary people would have none of them. The, dismay: which pervaded the French masses after the fall of Paris and the capitulation, has given place to a bitter resentment and hatred of the Germans. Passive resistance has been transformed into something more active. Anti-German demonstrations are becoming the order of the day, and, despite the repressive measures taken by the Germans and the French authorities, are continuing. Sabotage against traffic, the organization of railway accidents. murders of German "officers, the mass* arrests of thousands of alleged Communists, the establishment of.special tribunals by the French Government and the German threats to shoot hostages, should fresh offences occur. all go to paint a particularly lurid picture of conditions in occupied and unoccupied France.
Already the special court for dealing with cases of Communism has sentenced two men life, fifteen, ten and seven years.
of the matter appears to be that all people who are not reconciled to German domination are being regarded as Communists in ah endeavour to justify the wholesale slaugh-4 ter of French people whose only offence is that of hating the loathsome German inj vader. The German commander-in-chief in Eránce in a notice he has issued &Germanophobia on the same fool Communism si; If that means anything at all, it means that the French authorities are extending their first time that the Germans have resorted to Ouch tactics. Innocent villagers were' shot during the last war on the ground that someone or other had fired a shot at the German forces, and it is clear that in this struggle many Frenchmen loyal to the ideals for which they' fought are to suffer martyrdom hich they are to be assisted by the actions ime of their fellow countrymen. It is a ideans picture, but, unhappily, a true one.
It has quickly been stated that the man who attempted to murder M.. Laval is a Communist. There is every possibility that he is but another of those millions of Frenchmen proudly resentful of the manner in which their country has been betrayed, and is still being betrayed into the hands of a hated foe. There is but a small section of French people who have any use whatever for the Germans, and then in all probability merely for the purpose of serving their own selfish ends. The greater part of the masses are loyal to the old ideals, and want nothing of the much-vaunted new order which Hitler boasts he intends creating in Europe. ' They, like their fellows in other countries which have been overrun, are seething with discontent and hatred of their oppressors. The time is not yet, but it will come: when these people will arise against their enemies and take à terrible revenge. For the moment.the Germans with their French assistants may succeed in maintaining some sort of control, chiefly it is to be believed by means of the firing squad. That will not last for ever and those men who are now traitors to the real France will in their turn, beside the Germans they are so enthusiastically serving, be brought to judgment.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.