FRENCHMEN:
You have learned that Admiral Darlan recently conferred
with Chancellor Hitler.
I had approved this meeting in principle. The new interview permits
us to light up the road into the future and to continue the conversations
that had been begun with the German Government.
It is no longer a question today of public opinion,
often uneasy and badly informed, being able to estimate the chances
we are taking or measure the risks we take or judge our acts.
For you, the French people, it is simply a question
of following me without mental reservation along the path of honor and
national interest.
If through our close discipline and our public spirit
we can conduct the negotiations in progress, France will surmount her
defeat and preserve in the world her rank as a European and colonial
power.
That, my dear friends, is all that I have to say to
you today.
[New York Times, May 16. 1941.]