| Source | “Les nouveaux temps” Daily newspaper 13th June
1944 Fifth year n°1.140 |
| Event referred to | City bombing during World War II
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| Technological characteristics | Front page picture of the newspaper and text
Photo : jpeg format |
| Description of the source | Kind of source : Newspaper article
Origin of the source : personal archives
Language : French (translated in English)
Copyright issues :full availability
|
| Contextualisation of the source | 13 June 1944 : The Allies have been landing in Normandy since a week. The fights are taking place on the French soil. Lots of cities have been destroyed, mainly by bombings. The Vichy Government, in accordance with the Armistice agreements, remains neutral in these fights, though denouncing them within the contrext of its collaboration policy with Germany.
The collaborationists aim at leading France into the conflict siding with Nazi Germany. |
| Interpretation of the source | 1st interpretation : The Anglo-American are leading a destructive war on the French soil, whose targets are civilians, with full knowledge of the facts.They deliberately destroy French cities and their inhabitants.
They do not liberate: they destroy and slaughter with thair bombardments at random. They must be treated at the enemi of France.
National prospect : to try to turn the French population against the Allies, by denouncing the methods of war, focusing on the civilian victims. An attempt to make France ( the French State) enter the conflict, siding with Germany..
Collaborationist propaganda : The newspaper editor and the author of the editorial was tried, sentenced to death, then shot (22 February 1946). |
| Original Contents | Quotidien « les nouveaux temps » du mardi 13 juin 1944.
Extrait 1 :
Une France neutre est une France morte.
Les effroyables bombardements subis par notre pays depuis la Pentecôte avaient dessillé bien des yeux : nos compatriotes avaient compris que les ennemis de l’Europe, même mués en champions de la liberté, ne se souciaient pas le moins du monde des vies françaises –et sacrifiaient allégrement ces dernières au petit bonheur des bombes lâchées à grande et au jeu insensé des mitraillades déclanchées en rase-mottes.
Les débuts de l’invasion ont achevé cette affreuses leçon de choses : Caen, Lisieux, Saint-Lô, Vire et Bayeux détruites par les bombardements et par l’incendie apprennent à la France ce que signifie, en style anglo-américain, le mot prestigieux de « libération ». Selon la radio ennemie et selon ses complices gaullistes, une partie de la Normandie est « enfin libérée ». Nous savons maintenant que « libération », cela signifie exactement « destruction totale » des localités intéressées et « massacre à peu près complet des populations habitant ces localités »… pour peu que l’entreprise esquissée par MM ; Roosevelt et Churchill arrive un jour à son terme –et toutes nos villes auront été rasées au sol- et des millions de Français auront péri. Certes, les Français « seront libérés » ; mais la plupart d’entre eux seront morts. C’est payer « la libération » à un prix qui annule par avance toute espèce de libération… Ici, nous l’avions toujours annoncé. On ne nous avait pas cru. L’immense majorité de l’opinion publique constate maintenant que nous avions raison.
[…]
Jean Luchaire
Extrait 2 :
La section patronale du groupement corporatif de la presse quotidienne de Paris, réunie en séance extraordinaire, le 9 juin 1944, sous la présidence de M. Jean Luchaire,
Considérant que les bombardements répétés et aggravés dont, en dehors de la zone de guerre proprement dite, la France est désormais victime, atteignent celle-ci dans sa substance vitale et ne présentent plus aucun rapport valable avec des opérations militaires,
Considérant que les responsables de l’activité aérienne anglo-américains savent pertinemment que ces bombardements, s’ils n’apportent aucune gêne sensible à l’armée d’occupation, affaiblissent mortellement la France et qu’en conséquence cette activité aérienne, de propos délibéré, constitue une agression permanente, inhumaine contre une France désarmée, traitée ainsi en ennemie par ses soi-disant « libérateurs »,
Décide :
De donner toutes instructions utiles aux rédactions des quotidiens parisiens pour qu’à dater de ce jour, au lieu d’employer les diverses appellations usitées depuis l’armistice, le mot « ENNEMI »soit utilisé pour désigner les puissances anglo-américaines ainsi que les criminelles opérations auxquelles ces puissances se livrent volontairement et directement contre la France. |
| Original Contents (English Translation) | Daily Newspaper « Les Nouveaux Temps » Tuesday 13th June 1944.
Extract n° 1
A neutral France is a dead France.
The frightful bombardments our country has been enduring since Whitsun have opened lots of eyes.
Our compatriots have understood that the enemies of Europe, though turned into champions of freedom were quite indifferent to French lives and merrily sacrificed them for the sake of the bombs that are dropped and of that insane game of the machine gunnings triggered at level ground.
The beginnings of the invasion put an end to that dreadful lesson: Caen – Lisieux – Saint Lo – Vire and Bayeux destroyed by bombardments and fire, teaching France, in an Anglo-American style, the meaning of that prestigious word: “Liberation”.
According to the enemy radio and its Gaullist partners, a part of Normandy has been “liberated” at last.
Now, we do know the true meaning of the word “LIBERATION”, that is to say : “Total destruction” of the villages involved and “almost complete slaughter of the population living in these areas as long as the venture outlined by Messrs Roosevelt and Churchill reaches its conclusion, some day, then all our cities will have been razed to the ground and millions of French will have perished.
Indeed, the French “will be liberated” but most of them will die.
That “liberation” has taken a heavy toll among them that reduces in advance any kind of liberation to nothing.
Here, we had always announced it but noone had trusted us.
Now, the vast majority of the public opinion can state that we were right.
Extract n° 2
The employer’branch of the corporative group Paris’Daily Press, gathered in extraordinary meeting of June 9th 1944, whose under the Chairmanship of M. Jean Luchaire.
Considering that the repeated and aggravated bombardments that are affecting France in its vital substance henceforth, turn it into a victim and can no longer be justified as a valid military operation ;
Considering that the responsible players of the Anglo-American aerial operations know full well that those bombardments, though they are not really an obstacle to the occupying army, yet, mortally weaken France, and consequently that aerial operation intentionally constitutes a permanent, inhuman aggression against an “unarmed France”, then treated as the enemy by its so-called “liberators” has decided to give any useful directive to the editorial staff of Paris dailies, from today onwards, so as to use the term “enemy” to designate the Anglo-American powers, deliberately and directly brought against France, instead of employing the different names since the armistice. |
