Exiles from Lorraine
Gradually even the Petain Government is being forced to realise that Germany intends to treat France in the same spirit as she has treated other conquered. countries. Though M. Laval has been in Paris negotiating with the Germans in the hope of pushing his scheme of French " collaboration " with Germany, he alleges that nothing was said about the con- querors' intention to deport the French population from Lot- 'nine. The Vichy Government was suddenly confronted with a fait accompli when five train-loads a day of unhappy French chizens deported from their homes began to arrive in un- occupied France. The order apparently applies to all French nationals who entered Lorraine after 1918, and already roo,000 French-speaking people have been expelled ; and in addition French-speaking people from Alsace and Jews from the Rhine- land and the Palatinate are being sent into unoccupied France to make room for Germans from the Saar and the Ruhr regions. These cruel wholesale deportations were neither men- tioned in the Armistice agreement nor the subject of later dis- cussion. What Germany decrees France must endure, but the efforts of the servile Laval seem finally to have secured a check to the expulsions. Laval needs this success. His failure to win any advantages for his country as the price of proffered betrayal has not endeared him to those of his colleagues in the French Cabinet who, however lacking in clearness of vision, at least desire the best for their country.
Previous page
