London and Algiers
It is satisfactory to know that all issues involved in the civil :-.Aministration of liberged France are at last being tackled on the Immediate and practical level by a mixed commission of responsible French and British officials. The commission, which first met on Monday, is confronted with two pressing problems—the control of civil affairs in France and the issue of franc-notes to the Allied forces. Both questions are regarded with sensitiveness and anxiety in Algiers, for both are taken to involve French national sovereignty. Successful working arrangements on these points may well pave the way for broader agreement on the political level when General de Gaulle returns to London and visits Washington next month. Such, at least, is the hope and the intention. Washington is recog- nised in Algiers as the crux. On the whole, the auspices are good. M. Coulet, whom the French National Committee has appointed as civil administrator of Bayeux, is carrying out his functions suc- cessfully there in full harmony with the Allied Civil Affairs Division. The commission itself is a workmanlike body, with an expert and experienced British team appointed partly by the War Office and partly by the Foreign Office. It has already reached satisfactory agreement on similar questions with the Governments of Norway, Holland and Belgium. It meets against the background of striking French military successes in Italy under General Juin, and on the island of Elba, under General de Lattre de Tassigny. The "Army of the Interior" in France itself is playing havoc with German lines of supply. General de Gaulle, back in Algiers after his triumphal visit to Normandy, is reported to be pleased, if not satis- fied, with the results of his stay in London. Although titular recognition of the French Committee as the Provisional Govern- ment of France cannot be indefinitely shelved, it is all to the good that French leaders are willing to defer pressing for it until imme- diate working arrangements are made. They are earning thereby the trust which they demand.
