Giraud And De
p. 36 · Read in the full issue
Gaulle
THAT the protracted arguments be tween Generals de Gaulle and Giraud, concerning control of the Fighting French are puzzling not only the British and Americans, but also the Fighting French people themselves, is shown by the issue of an explanatory statement in Sydney by the Fighting French Delegation. Portion is published hereunder:— “Now that details of the visit to North Africa by General de Gaulle are being discussed, we wish to make clear the reasons for General de Gaulle’s insistence on the meeting taking place there, and particularly in Algiers. They are as follows: “1. All arrangements for the forma tion of a French Governing Body must be made on French soil between French men (as was the case when the original French Imperial Council of Defence was set up at Brazzaville).
“2, Algeria, legally a French Metro politan Territory, is obviously the place where such a meeting should take place.
“3. In accordance with the laws of the French Republic now fully acknowledged by General Giraud, a fully representa tive Consultative National Council could be established in Algeria. From this National Council, a temporary central power could be elected in terms of the French Constitution.
“4. The significance of the agreement to be reached is of such importance that the meeting cannot be merely one between generals. It must have a much wider basis.
“Whence the insistence of General de Gaulle upon talks taking place publicly and in Algeria’s capital, Algiers, and not in some secret rendezvous in the moun tains.’’
General Giraud, regarding himself as senior French officer in North Africa, and “being trained in the hierarchical auto matism of French tradition,’’ naturally assumes that he is justified in aspiring to supreme direction of French resist ance.
But the Fighting French will not desert de Gaulle. “De Gaulle, in the hour of our deepest darkness, alone of Frenchmen, risked everything, in his faith in our final victory, and the fact remains that to an immense majority of the people of France, General de Gaulle appears to-day, not merely as a young and brilliant general who, on June 18, 1940, made a very famous speech, but as the saviour of French dignity, as the embodiment of French courage, and as the hope of a new France purified by suffering and determined to assume again her historic and legitimate posi tion in world affairs.”