Accents of the Conqueror

Germany does not dictate all the decrees of Vichy directly. But the peace of France will not be written until warfare ceases, and Vichy commits the pardonable sin of wishing to please the conqueror so that the peace will be gentle. Therefore, some of the sentences of Vichy have had a gutteral German hardness about them. Last week for the first time came words so un-French, so very German in accent that the outside world found it hard to believe they came from the mouth of an old fighter for France, Henri Philippe Petain.

Premier Petain announced laws against French Jews. The laws defined a Jew as a man with three Jewish grandparents or two Jewish grandparents and a Jewish wife. They barred most such men from all but minor public jobs, requiring incumbent Jewish officeholders to resign within two months; from positions in the Army, Navy, Air Force; from jobs as teachers; from positions in press, radio, cinema. Vichy was very proud that these decrees were milder than Germany's--that Jews may retain civil rights as citizens. Some professions were not purged.

The law stated that a Jew may become a lawyer, but not a judge. By accident this article did not include among courts to which Jews might not be appointed as judges the court at Riom which is trying men accused of responsibility for the war.

At week's end two Jews who had helped rule the land, onetime Premier Leon Blum and onetime Colonial and Interior Minister Georges Mandel, were haled before the judges of Riom as the "war guilt" trials began in earnest.

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