FRANCE: Anastasie Out

Anastasie, the puritanical, tight-lipped old maid who symbolizes censorship to Frenchmen (TIME, Dec. 4), fought for her life last week as protests against her were made in the Chamber of Deputies. Socialist Leader Leon Blum made the strongest accusations, terming what Anastasie had done as “absolute incompetence” and “ridiculous ignorance.” Then he produced statistics to show her devastating effect on French publicity abroad: “Out of every 100 lines of information published by U. S. newspapers France obtains five, Germany 31.”

Alarmed, Premier Edouard Daladier gave in to the complaints and promised: 1) to limit censorship to “military, diplomatic and national necessities”; 2) to centralize all propaganda in a responsible Ministry of Public Information. Until now press censorship has been controlled by a mere Commissariat of Information, radio censorship by its separate bureau. The jobs now have Cabinet status. Taking note of the Daladier promises, the Chamber gave the Government a 450-to-0 vote of confidence. “I trust,” threatened the Premier, “that I shall not be asked in a few days to put an end to this liberty.”