851.504/7–747
The French Embassy to the Department of State
Aide-Mémoire
The Embassy of France has the honor to refer to its note No. 164 of May 7 and its aide-mémoire of June 16 and 18.1
During the past months, the French Government has spared no pains in scrupulously carrying out the agreement which it signed on March 11, 19472 concerning the repatriation of German prisoners whose custody was entrusted to it by the American authorities. Between March 1 and July 1, 1947, it succeeded in effecting a total of 87,000 repatriations, 7,000 more than the number set for the same period on the basis of 20,000 repatriations per month. If one adds that, from January 1 to March 1, 15,000 prisoners had already been returned to Germany, this gives a figure of 102,000 men, or nearly one quarter of the total number of prisoners transferred by the United States to France and left under French control, who have been repatriated.
When the French Government agreed to fix the monthly number of repatriations at 20,000, it relied upon the promise contained in the aide-mémoire of December 3, in which Mr. Jefferson Caffery indicated that the American authorities in Germany would receive instructions, if the French Government expressed such desire, to cooperate in the recruitment of German workers for France.
[Page 635]As a matter of fact, the recruitment of free labor in Germany by the French authorities has encountered long delays on the part of the American authorities and financial terms which were not acceptable to the French Government. In order to overcome these difficulties, the latter proposed to the American Government certain solutions which were, specifically, the subject of the aide-mémoire of June 18. It sincerely regrets that there was not greater haste in concluding the agreement sought.
While such agreement failed to materialize the aggravation of the general labor situation only rendered the solution of this problem more difficult for the French Government.
The strikes which have occurred in the coal mines and on the railroads have caused a serious diminution of the raw materials which are indispensable to the French economy.
With the approach of a harvest which is of exceptional importance and seriousness for the country, the French Government, placed under the obligation of improving at all costs, the tragic situation of its wheat supply feels itself obliged not to divert more than a minimum amount of labor from the agricultural population.
The failure of the Italian Government to carry out the commitments made in the labor agreement, in which France took the initiative, has reduced to 5 or 6,000 the recruitment of 17,000 workers per month anticipated in the application of that agreement.
The hiring of displaced persons in Germany cannot give substantial results before harvest time.
If, moreover, in conformity with the Agreement of March 11, work contracts in the number fixed are to be distributed at once to the German prisoners, the transformation of the latter into free workers, by making it easier for them to leave their work and to return to Germany, even in spite of their contracts, entails grave risks for the French economy in the critical period through which it is now passing.
Lastly, the French Government is obliged to permit the workers born in Eastern Europe who formally express the desire to do so, to return to their countries. These elements furnish the French economy with workers who are particularly useful by reason of their specialization in mining and agricultural work. Anxious to lose as few of these workers as possible, the French Government has taken every precaution to make sure that their departure was really voluntary and was not caused by any pressure; it could not, however, oppose the return of these free workers to their countries when they sincerely expressed the desire to do so. While in 1946 these repatriations to the Eastern countries were limited to 7,000 Poles and 2,000 Yugoslavs, or a total [Page 636] of 9,000 workers, the departures amount, during the present year, to much larger figures, which consist of:
17,000 Poles, comprising 8,000 employed in coal, iron and potassium mines, 3,000 miscellaneous workers and 6,000 agricultural workers;
2,000 Yugoslavs, several hundred of whom are miners, the others being for the most part agricultural workers;
10,000 Ukrainians and Byelorussians, chiefly agricultural workers.
To this total of 29,000 workers are added the members of their families, a large number of whom are employed in the French economy.
In the aide-mémoire of June 16, the Embassy of France was instructed to state that the recruitment of free German workers conditioned the ability of the French Government to maintain the repatriation of German prisoners of war at the monthly figure contemplated. It stressed the urgency presented for this reason by the conclusion with the American authorities of an agreement on the recruitment of free German workers, analogous to the one which was being negotiated with the British authorities.
The apprehensions of the French Government have become a reality. The situation set forth above places it under the unavoidable obligation, under penalty of causing in the French economy a crisis which may have serious repercussions, to reduce, taking into consideration the provisions of paragraph 3 of the Agreement of March 11, the repatriations of German prisoners from 20,000 to 10,000, during each of the two months of July and August.
The French Government will make every effort possible to compensate for this reduction in the coming months, by exceeding the repatriation quotas established. It is confident that it will succeed in doing so if an improvement in the general labor situation in France can be effected and particularly if the contingents not only of displaced persons but also of German free labor which the French Government has been trying to obtain for several months are received. The French authorities would therefore attach the greatest importance to receiving without delay the reply of the American Government to the offers appearing in the aide-mémoire of June 18, a reply which, they very much hope, will be favorable.3
- Neither printed.↩
- See telegram No. 1116 from Paris, March 13, 1947, footnote 1, p. 629.↩
- On July 15 Frances E. Willis, Assistant Chief of the Division of Western European Affairs, gave to Armand Bérard, Minister Counselor in the French Embassy, an aide-mémoire expressing regret that the French Government felt compelled to reduce the rate of repatriation during July and August and the hope that it would be possible to compensate for this reduction in the following months. Miss Willis added that instructions had been sent to the American Embassy in Paris to approach the French Government with a view to working out an agreement. (851.504/7–1547)↩