General Weygand, commander of the French forces in Africa has decided “to settle without delay” the Jewish question in Algeria, it was reported here today. A special office to deal with Jewish affairs will be established by him to act under his personal control, the report said.
Extension of the Vichy anti-Jewish laws to the 110,000 Jews of Algeria has met with serious complications and Xavier Vallat, the Commissioner for Jewish Affairs of the Vichy Government, announced a few days ago that he intends to proceed shortly to Algeria “to study the problem on the spot.”
Following confessions made to the police today by sixteen young Frenchmen arrested in connection with the explosion of a bomb in the Vichy synagogue, it was announced that two leaders of an unnamed French political party will be interned. The secretary of the Vichy branch of this political party, M. Farraud, 22, is among the sixteen youths arrested. At today’s examination he confessed that he placed the bomb in the basement of the synagogue Two of the arrested confessed that they stole explosives from a stone quarry and a third confessed that he manufactured the bomb which was planted in the synagogue building. The police found fifty kilo of explosives hidden in the woods near Vichy, as a result of the confessions.
An official communique issued by the police today announces that thirteen of the arrested men will be held for trial. The communique says that among those arrested is one Belgian citizen who confessed to his participation in the plans to bomb the synagogue.
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