Laval and His Masters
M. Laval, like his peripatetic prototype, is doing a good deal of going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it, mainly between Paris and Vichy. At Paris he gets orders, at Vichy he fails, through no fault of his own, to carry them out. He is to recapture Free French colonies for Paris-Vichy ; instead of that he sees Madagascar pass into British hands, with the announcement that the Free French will be associated in the administration of tile island. He gets orders to inject Vichy into the discussions over Martinique between the United States and the French Admiral on the spot ; the American State Department's answer to that is to ignore Vichy completely and conspicuously. He gets orders to deliver up General Giraud to German custody and finds that French public opinion, which he • never dreamed of regarding, is too vehement to be disregarded in this case. He relies on German support in resistance to Italian claims to French territory and hears Mussolini demanding Nice, Corsica and Tunis more clamorously than ever. It is clear that the Germans are becoming highly dis- contented with the arch-collaborationist, and it is hard to see what possibility he has of re-establishing himself in their graces. They may, as the last resource, have to occupy Vichy France after all.
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