On An Acquittal

The acquittal of 20-year-old Mlle. Germaine Berthon of shooting Marius Plateau, an editor of L' Action Franc,aise (TIME, Dec. 31), received the following comment from the Paris press:

L' Action Franc,aise said bitterly that the next slayer of a Royalist will probably be awarded the Legion of Honor.

Le Figaro remarked that the verdict was a "triumph of violence" and suggests that the jury became befuddled and committed an error because of the eloquent oratory addressed to them pro and con Royalism.

Le Gaulois demanded: "Under what aberration could the French citizens on the jury yesterday lend themselves to the glorification of anarchy? . . . In freeing Germaine Berthon they gave a premium to communism and anarchy." Le Gaulois thought that the case, instead of belittling the Royalists, shows France really needs a dictator if democratic juries cannot render a better verdict.

Le Temps asseverated that there was a middle course between the guillotine and acquittal--ten or fifteen years in prison. If France is going to allow political murders to go unpunished, it said, she must expect many more of them.

L'Intransigeant thought that the jury had given France a poor Christmas present (Mlle. Berthon was acquitted Dec. 24) and called the verdict worse than absurd.

La Liberte produced a picture of the mother* of the murdered man kneeling at a church altar while his slayer joyously quaffed champagne in a Montmartre cafe. It added: "Yesterday's verdict did more to promote Facism in France than twenty years' work of the Camelots du Roi."

Le Journal des Debats said: "Infinitely regrettable."

L'Humanite, Communist journal, praised the jury.

*Mme. Plateau had, as a matter of fact, asked the jury to grant extenuating circumstances to her son's murderess.