840.48 Refugees/2317
The French Ambassador (Henry-Haye) to the Secretary of State
The recent arrival of several thousand Israelites expelled from Germany in the zone of French territory which is not subject to German authority has considerably increased the difficulties of a demographic order which the French Government has to face.
These refugees have come, indeed, to join the three and one-half million aliens who have found asylum in France in the course of recent years. (White Russians, Assyro-Chaldeans, Armenians, Jews, people from the Saar, Germans, Austrians, Czechoslovaks, Spaniards and Poles).
The effort thus accomplished by France has created for her a situation which was already grave before the opening of hostilities and which today appears in a form of extreme acuteness. The war has, as [Page 244] a matter of fact, brought about movements of population which have resulted in the grouping in the free zone of all the foreign elements residing in France. The problem of supplying them with food has thus become particularly difficult to solve.
The French Government hopes to be able to count upon the assistance of other States to aid it in solving the problem which is of concern to the community of nations. Only a fairer distribution of the foreign refugees, particularly of the Israelites, among the different countries will facilitate the settlement of the problem.
The Inter-Governmental Committee which, on the initiative of the President of the United States, met at Evian in July 1938, was able to establish, in the course of its work, that aside from the United States, several States of Central and South America were in a position to receive a very considerable number of refugees.
In the present impossibility of calling the Inter-Governmental Committee together again, the French Government would like to be able, taking as a basis the Evian deliberations, to study with the United States Government means calculated to permit the emigration to the American continent of foreign nationals, principally of German nationality, now settled on French territory.
The Ambassador of France has the honor to bring these considerations to the knowledge of His Excellency the Secretary of State, while expressing the desire to be informed of the views of the United States Government on the matter. He wishes to state that the French Government has refrained from any steps directed toward the other American Governments, thinking that it pertains to the Government of the United States, if it deems it apropos, to lay the question before them through the channel of a Pan American Conference or any other means suitable to it.
Mr. Henry-Haye is happy to avail himself of this opportunity to renew to the Honorable Cordell Hull the assurances of his very high consideration.