In previous letters from Paris, which Government and Opposition has been kind enough to publish, I do not believe that I erred on the side of complacency about my country. This is why I have less hesitation in writing today that France is at present the victim of a gale of calumny, the intensity and extent of which leaves one bewildered, incredulous and unhappy.

A particular and aggravating circumstance is that these aspersions are believed in, or at least spread, by the French media and the political elite itself. According to them the moral health of France is threatened. It is in danger of being submerged by a wave of racism, of anti-Semitism and even of neo-Nazism. The most implacable vigilance is necessary. This new official doctrine, it must be said, is quite simply absurd.