Simms: State control of press, radio, films alarms friends of France
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
Cherbourg, France –
Among the things which have alarmed friends of France the most was the decree of the Provisional Government in Algiers placing press, radio and films under state control.
The Algiers ordinance would seem to destroy freedom of the press and other means of public expression. The state would have the say as to who could run newspapers. The French Information Agency alone would have the right to circulate government communiqués, domestic and foreign news and to acquire the services of foreign news agencies.
Movies could not operate until authorized by the Commissioner of Information.
Tempered ruling hoped for
Events here, however, lead to the hope that the Algiers degree may be somewhat tempered in practice. Supposedly, all newspapers and periodicals which carried out Nazi or Vichy policy were to be confiscated. Yet none of that seems to have happened here.
One of the oldest newspapers in this part of France is Éclair of Cherbourg. After the German occupation, it turned collaborationist. But when the Americans marched on the port, the editor fled to Paris, leaving the paper in the hands of his brother-in-law, M. Hamel.
New name for paper
After the fall of Cherbourg, Algiers Regional Commissioner François Coulet began to apply the law. He ousted Hamel and appointed Roger Pillet, a newspaperman and member of the resistance group, as editor. Printers and other employees of Éclair struck. They contended Hamel had never written any collaborationist stuff. He had only managed the property as he had done before 1940, and throughout the occupation he had carried on “in a spirit of friendly cooperation with the workers,” they maintained.
Subprefect Leviandier, a Coulet appointee, who was called in to arbitrate, decided to give the newspaper a new name, La Presse cherbourgeoise, and to go on publishing with the old staff, including Hamel as managing director and Pillet as editor.
Commendable discretion
Throughout all this the U.S. Army’s Civil Affairs officers remained aloof.
Whether this incident means a more democratic formula will be followed remains to be seen. Certainly, Commissioner Coulet, who has wide powers, appears to have used commendable discretion.
In England, many liberal Frenchmen had looked askance at the Algiers press-radio regulation. They observed that the road to liberty is hardly through dictatorship. They said that if democracy is to be restored in France, the way to do it is not by abandoning the principles which are the foundation of democracy.