FRANCE ANXIOUS ABOUT ALSACE

They Did Not Like Mobilisation
From Our Own Correspondent
PARIS.
The problem of Alsace has cropped up again in public discussion. It is said that Germany is aiding the Alsace Separatist movement and that the Alsatians were " troublesome " during the French mobilisation.
The trouble in Alsace has attracted a good deal more attention from English newspapers than it has here. However, M. Bud is very excited about the subject in L'Ordre where he has painted a picture of Hitler carrying on simultaneously a " Drive towards the East " and a " Drive towards the West."
There is a good deal of hysteria about all this for it is possible to be reasonably suspicious of the Fiihrer's motives and intentions without assuming that he intends, like the mythical hero, to mount his steed and ride off in all directions.
Berlin's Opportunity
Alsatian autonomism is no new story and if we could isolate it from the general European situation there might be no more need to take it seriously than to worry about displays of regionalism in Brittany, which have sometimes taken rather violent forms.
The trouble is, of course, that any display of Germanic sentiment in Europe Zr likely to be exploited by Berlin M. Bare presents a very simple picture according to which the Sudeten agitation in Czechoslovakia was created by Germany and the same tactic may be expected in Alsace. This does not fit the facts.
The uninformed reader might get the idea that an inoffensive movement had been stimulated by Herr Hitler into a national menace. The autonomist movement, however, has been frankly separatist ever since the turbulent days of the Colmar trial in 1928.
Some Grievances This does not mean that the majority of people in Alsace wish to leave France and go to Germany. Against the gloomy picture presented by M. Bure is to be set the account given by Robert Andriveau in Je Suis Partout of the mobilisation scenes in the Province.
On the one hand it is quite true that there are real grievances and that the assimilation of the recovered provinces to the Third Republic has not always been carried on as tactfully as it might have been. Anti-clericalism is largely responsible for this as for so many other evils in France. It would misrepresent the situation to say that Alsatian Catholics are separatists, but they have had their loyalty considerably strained. There are also economic grievances. It is easy to understand the motives which have led to factories being taken further into the interior, but the hardships are none the less real.
The Communists arc adopting familiar tactics. In 1928 they were partisans of Alsatian separatism: in 1938 they are concentrating attention on Hitler as the big bad wolf who wants Alsace, Against any criticisms of French administration must be set the undoubted fact that German culture has been very much more sympathetically treated in the Third Republic than any minority would be in the Third Reich.