Fascism in Progress

While totalitarian terror raged in Paris (see above), in Vichy last week the sculptors of French Fascism carved away at their totalitarian work, pausing only to throttle those critics they could get their hands on.

> On the desk of Marshal Philippe Henri Petain lay a proposed new constitution. It was described with understatement as calling for "a democratic electorate at the bottom checked by an aristocracy at the top." Actually the electorate was to have a voice as weak as in Germany, Italy or Russia--as can be seen from a diagram of the proposed Governmental framework (see cut).

> Vichy's Secretary of State for Education Jerome Carcopino announced the abolition of free high-school education. This measure, in effect ending high-schooling for the French poor, he defended on the ground that the masses of poor children had made classes unwieldy, that the rich had got free schooling at the State's expense. By way of compensation to the poor, he said that the number of State scholarships would be increased. He also implied that hereafter history-class attention would be concentrated on periods before the freedom-spreading French Revolution.

> To a group of students leaving on a visit to Spain, Marshal Petain gave what may become the new French flag -- a banner bearing the fasces and Vichy's slogan, FAMILLE, TRAVAIL, PATRIE (FAMILY, WORK, COUNTRY).

> Vichy's catlike Vice Premier Admiral Jean Franc,ois Darlan angrily considered a letter from 62-year-old General Count Benoit Leon de Fornel de la Laurencie. A brave fighter in France's brief World War II defense, the General was among the few French commanders at Dunkirk. There he bucked up his exhausted troops by holding a review. Said Gringoire: "When they passed in front of their chief, they turned their hardened, sunburned faces toward him, in an immense tete-`a-tete. All of their expressions were at once so proud and so tender that one could not tell whether it was they who were saluting the general, or the general who greeted his children."

After the Armistice, Marshal Petain appointed General de Fornel delegate to the German Army of Occupation, but he did not fancy the job and last winter was removed. To Admiral Darlan he wrote that he had "no confidence in the generosity of our conquerors. ... I not only hope for but expect a British victory. Moreover I share this opinion with a great majority of my fellow citizens, whether in the free zone or the occupied zone."

Last week Admiral Darlan threw General de Fornel de la Laurencie in jail.

>For "motives of order and home security" Vichy also imprisoned other prominent citizens.

> Dissension between Admiral Darlan and Vichy's North African High Commander, General Maxime Weygand, has often been rumored (TIME, Aug. 25). Into General Weygand's sphere last week Vichy moved three officers whose fealty to Vichy seemed unquestioned. Fair-faced, jolly General Alphonse Pierre Juin, 55, became Commander of Vichy's Moroccan forces. Just a month ago the Nazis saw fit to release General Juin from a German prison camp. Fellow officers have often noted his totalitarian sympathies. Suave, dark General Jean Josephe Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny became commander of Vichy's Tunisian troops. His name has often been linked with the pre-war Croix de Feu (fascists) and Cagoulards (monarchist terrorists). To command the French Mediterranean Fleet, Vichy appointed young Admiral Gabriel Adrien Josephe Paul Auphan, British-hating favorite of Admiral Darlan, brother of an editor of the British-hating Action Franc,ais.

> From the files of General Henri Fernand Dentz, former Vichy commander in Syria who was sent home last week, the British took telegrams which proved beyond question that Vichy had collaborated with the German Army. One telegram, signed by Minister of War General Charles Huntziger, read:

"Admiral Darlan has granted the Germans the use of air bases in the Levant. Please at once advise the Wiesbaden Commission concerning the reaction to such measures. . . ."

A second telegram (unsigned) read: "If German or Italian planes fly over Levant, please refrain from any reply. If any of these planes alight on your fields, receive them and ask instructions. British planes must be attacked at any cost."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.