A movement to establish foreign refugees, evacuated French families and youths on the land to help fill France’s need of 3,000,000 farm workers has been organized as “Pour la Terre de France,” an agricultural section of the Association of the Bienvenue Francaise.
It is planned to ask American persons and institutions to become “godfathers” of French rural villages. Patrons of the new organization include President Albert Lebrun, Premier Edouard Daladier, Vice-Premier Camille Chautemps, Interior Minister Albert Sarraut, Education Minister Yvon Delbos and other Government officials, as well as Marquis de Vogue, president of the International Confederation of Agriculture, and other farming leaders. Leader of the organization is Mme. Boas de Jouvenal, founder and general secretary of the Bienvenue Francaise.
The adoption of villages or regions by American groups, the organization states, “will permit realization of necessary work for more comfort and hygiene… The godfathers and godmothers will be careful to conserve the beauty of the countryside, regional architecture, folklore and artisanry…Those who consecrate themselves to the land will enjoy all the advantages reserved up to now for the inhabitants of cities.”
Agriculture Minister Henri Queuille, in a letter endorsing the aims of the movement, recalled previous successful refugee farm projects and said: “Rural exodus, even before the war, has left many vacant farming lands in certain regions of France. Mobilization has further increased the difficulties. It will thus be easy to find farms and small estates in which to establish new elements for agricultural purposes.
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