FRANCE: Official Accusation

Since close-mouthed silence in political matters is the rule among army officers of the Great Powers, Frenchmen attached unusual importance last week to a brief statement by General Julien Claude Marie Dufieux. Inspector General of Infantry and of Schools for Officers, a Wartime protege of Marshal Petain. General Dufieux coolly announced that two months ago he received convincing evidence that the Soviet Embassy in Paris was assisting French Communists to prepare a coup d’etat which was to have seized the Government on November 16, and laid this evidence before famed General Marie Gustave Gamelin, chief of the French General Staff, in time for the plot to be nipped.

Significant was the fact that the Soviet Government did not immediately explode with angry protests and denials of such grave charges by a French general on active duty. Equally significant was the fact that such charges had been made against a country which is nominally France’s military ally. Frenchmen were left to infer 1) that the charges were true, 2) that the French General Staff considered France’s military alliance with Russia about washed up.