"Easements"

To many loyal but tired Frenchmen last week the springs and parks and ornamental villas of Vichy seemed more forlorn than ever. For out of Vichy, after weeks of rumor, came the most striking signs yet of French "collaboration" with Adolf Hitler, and suspicion sped through France that if Marshal Petain was still doggedly trying to pick up the French pieces, his aged fingers were now only fumbling.

Back & forth between Vichy and Paris shuttled Marshal Petain's dapper, middle-aged Vice Premier, Admiral Jean Frangois Darlan. At length Vichy announced that "certain easements" would presently take place between the Occupied and Unoccupied Zones. Hereafter Germany would charge France less for the support of the Nazi Army of Occupation, beginning with a reduction of from 400,000,000 to 300,000,000 francs a day. Generally speaking, the demarcation line would be opened for goods, cash, securities, and for people who wished to attend the sickness or burial of near relatives. Postcard correspondence would be permitted between the Zones. Meanwhile discussions continued between Admiral Darlan and Nazi Envoy Otto Abetz.

Vichy did not say what Germany would get in return--which made the "easements" seem ominous. The London Times guessed that Vichy would let Germany use railways leading to Spain and airports in French-mandated Syria, next door to Axis-desired Iraq and a handy jumping-off place for attacks on the Suez Canal.

Any newspaper-reading Frenchman could guess that the Abetz discussions were aimed at nothing less than total French "collaboration" in Germany's building of the "Eurafrica" of the future--possibly including the assistance of the French Navy and General Maxime Weygand's North African Army, now said to number as many as 300,000 men. Furthermore, a certain sympathy in Vichy for Germany's grandiose future schemes seemed far from unlikely. Said the Vichy-inspired Temps last week: "When one probes to the bottom of things it is evident that the present crisis reduces itself to the opposition of two systems, one based on the principle of liberty, of which America proclaims herself the champion; the other guided by an authoritarian doctrine, of which Germany is the protagonist. Today the latter wins the day in Europe, since the armies of the Reich occupy the greater part of the continent.

"This is a fact against which the customary arguments of political controversy are of no avail. . . .

"We are very grateful for the generous efforts of America, which we appreciate at their full value; but we do not have the right to forget that in the present circumstances our European duty is a duty to ourselves also. . . ." Last week Vichy also issued a warning against a U.S. attempt to seize Dakar on the West African coast. Dakar in the hands of the London-Washington Axis would facilitate defense of Britain's embattled maritime lifeline around Africa. Nazi agents were reported swarming in French Morocco. And the Nazis were quietly but speedily building railroad links across northwest Africa which will connect Oran, on the Mediterranean, with Dakar.

This week Admiral Darlan was received by the Fuehrer himself. And from Zurich it was reported that Adolf Hitler had bestowed on Darlan and his predecessor Pierre Laval the Kriegsverdienstkreuz, second class--a Nazi military decoration for war services rendered outside of military-action.

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