A Freed French Empire
Already when Laval was delivering his mendacious and futile broadcast last Friday the way was being prepared for removing new tracts of the French Colonial Empire from the palsied grip of Vichy. The momentous announcement was made by Admiral Darlan on Monday that French West Africa had put itself freely under his orders, and that the Commander-in-Chief of the land, sea and air forces in West Africa was prepared to join forces with the French generals in North Africa. Thus at one stroke the whole long coast
from Morocco to Dakar and beyond is freed from enemy influence, communications of no more than 1,600 miles between Brazil and Africa are opened, and new bases for anti-submarine war become available. Simultaneously an agreement has been reached with the French Admiral at Martinique such as to make it unnecessary to occupy French possessions in the West Indies. Thus the whole of the French Empire overseas, apart from Djibuti and one or two islands, has been released or has released itself from the control of the treacherous Laval. (French Indo-China, of course, was made over to Japan.) Frenchmen overseas who were willing to obey -Petain as long as he was a free agent, or profess, like Darlan, still to be carrying out the orders he gave before Laval became dictator, have given the lie to Laval's ridiculous charge—that the Anglo-Saxons are taking away the French Empire—and have declared for the defence of the Empire against its real enemies, the Germans and those who basely collaborate with them. What Laval says deceives no one. What he does matters little to any but the unhappy people of occupied France who have been brought under his control. There are limits now to his capacity for betrayal.
