President Roosevelt to the British Prime Minister (Churchill)96
321. Various sources continue, though with less pressure, to ask recognition of the existing French Committee of National Liberation. Some people want to recognize it as the organization acting for French interests in all French territory, including France. Other people want to recognize it as acting for French interests only in former French Empire.
Most, not all, are willing to accept the Committee’s authority subject to the military requirements of the British and American Forces.
We have been saying, first, that the military requirements are and will be paramount to all civil matters; second, that the French Committee of National Liberation has only begun to function and should give further and more satisfactory evidence of the complete and genuine unity of the Committee. This unity must eliminate hitherto [Page 176] French political or factional controversies designed to promote either group antagonisms or individual aspirations, and demonstrate a real purpose to unify itself and, behind it, all Frenchmen in support of the cooperative efforts of the United Nations in the prosecution of the war against the Axis powers, having in mind its single cause of the liberation of France and the success of the United Nations.
The French Committee was supposedly conceived on the principle of collective responsibility of individual Frenchmen for the prosecution of the war and our relations with it should be kept on this basis, it being understood that as to matters of a military character the two Governments will deal directly with the French Commander-in-Chief of the French forces. French political questions must be left to solution by the people of France when they have been freed from the present domination of the enemy.
Visible signs of bitter propaganda against French elements by other French groups continue. This applies also to their attitude against Britain and the United States. Attempted claims of the exercise of French sovereignty by the Committee in the face of military exigencies are without basis and hence veiled references to invasion of French sovereignty by the United States and Great Britain have no justification whatever. Appearances of unity within the Committee seem to me to be still on the surface and at this time I must conclude that they are continuing or are ready at any time to continue bitter attacks on each other and on us jointly or severally.
This Government is most anxious to join with you and the other United Nations to move along the line of limited acceptance of the Committee, subject always to military requirements, but we should make it clear that the plain conditions of French unity must be properly met.
I do not think we should at any time use the word “recognition” because this would be distorted to imply that we recognize the Committee as the government of France as soon as we land on French soil. Perhaps the word “acceptance” of the Committee’s local, civil authority in various colonies on a temporary basis comes nearer to expressing my thought. We must, however, retain the right and continue the present practice of dealing directly with local French officials in the colonies whenever military advantage to the Allied cause so dictates. Martinique is an illustrative example.
Giraud’s visit here was very successful. We kept it on a purely military basis and we are starting immediately to send additional equipment for his Army with every North African convoy.
As far as concerns the situation of the French Committee, what would you think of the following proposed statement to be made simultaneously to the French Committee on the part of the two Governments by Macmillan and Murphy?
[Page 177]“The Governments of the United States and Great Britain desire again to make clear their purpose of cooperating with all patriotic Frenchmen looking to the liberation of the French people and territory from the oppressions of the enemy.
“Arrangements have been made with the French Commander-in-Chief in North and West Africa for continuing the cooperation of the French armed forces under his control. The two Governments will cooperate with the French Committee of National Liberation on other matters of mutual interest on the understanding that the Committee was conceived and will function, on the principle of collective responsibility of all members of the Committee, for the prosecution of the war and not for the promotion of factional movements.
“They desire to make clear, however, the following two conditions:
- “(1) That the constitution and government to be established for France must be determined by the French people after they shall have been afforded an opportunity freely to express themselves.
- “(2) That the relationship with the Committee will be subject to the military requirements of the Allied commanders in the prosecution of the war.”
- Copy of telegram obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.↩