740.0011 European War 1939/11043: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Leahy) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:16 p. m,]
567. Embassy’s telegram 565, May 16, 7 p.m.72 The following communiqué was given out last night by the French Information Service and published in this morning’s press here:
“In Government circles surprise is shown over the statements which Mr. Roosevelt made at Washington73 according to which he [Page 173] interpreted the radio address of Marshal Petain74 as the placing of French colonies at the disposal of Germany.
That interpretation seems all the more astonishing as it is accompanied by unofficial statements which envisage the occupation of French Guiana and Martinique.
Likewise, the occupation by an armed guard of 10 French ships in American ports, including the Normandie, constitutes an act, the character of which cannot be explained only by the ideological reasons with which they are trying over there to cover it.
In May 1940, when France was abandoned by England, America did not feel that it should answer her appeal. Today, France, desirous of maintaining her position as a great power and the integrity of her territory and Empire, has the right to envisage with her conqueror the conditions of a common reorganization of continental Europe.
This in no way signifies that she has any intention of attacking England and even less the United States.
The threats of Mr. Eden75 against Syria and the bombardment of Syrian airdromes have just been added to what France still refuses to consider as wilful Anglo-Saxon aggression.76
Furthermore, the statements which Mr. Henry-Haye, French Ambassador at Washington, has made to the American press on this subject express the point of view of the people of France: ‘enemy of all dissidence and trusting in the wisdom and high patriotism of Marshal Petain’.”
The morning press likewise carries under a Washington dateline of yesterday the following summary of the President’s statement:
“Mr. Roosevelt declared today to the American public that he found it difficult to believe that the French Government could lend itself to a plan of voluntary [alliance] which would apparently deliver up France and her colonial Empire including French African colonies and their Atlantic coasts with the menace which that involves for the peace and safety of the Western Hemisphere.
The statement of President Roosevelt was made after a long conference with Mr. Hull and Mr. Welles on the situation of France after the speech of Marshal Petain on Franco-German collaboration. The President states that it is inconceivable that the people of France would be willing to accept any agreement for so-called collaboration which in reality implies their alliance with a military power whose central and fundamental policy calls for the utter destruction of liberty and popular institutions.”
(It will be observed that no reference is made in this summary of [to] the first paragraph of the President’s statement.)
- Not printed.↩
- See telegram No. 411, May 15, to the Ambassador in France, p. 171.↩
- For text of address, see New York Times, May 16, 1941, p. 1.↩
- Anthony Eden, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩
- For correspondence regarding occupation of Syria by British and Free French forces, see vol. iii, pp. 725 ff.↩