SPAIN: Bargaining Point

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One of the minor irritants in Dictator Francisco Franco's steady pursuit of world esteem has been the continued existence of small groups of Spanish non-Communist democrats in exile. What particularly irritates Franco is the suspicion that France, which supported the Loyalist Republican government, is still giving financial aid to Loyalist exiles, and paying the rent for Republican headquarters in Paris. With each change in French government, the Spanish ambassador has gone across to the Quai d'Orsay to ask that the subsidy, whatever it is, be withdrawn. Recently Franco has found a way to put a real squeeze on the French.

In their portion of the Arab sultanate of Morocco, the French were having so much trouble with the Arabs that they found it necessary to depose popular Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef and to replace him with the ineffective Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa. The switch aroused widespread resentment in Spanish Morocco, a resentment which Franco's Fascist radio was not averse to exploiting.

Last week the French Foreign Office officially denied that it had made a deal with Franco to withdraw aid from the Loyalist exiles in return for a soft-pedaling of anti-French activity among the Arabs in Spanish Morocco. For the French to admit withdrawing aid from the Loyalists would be to acknowledge that in the past it had been given. But Spanish democrats, with small hope of unseating Franco, were preparing for a cutback in the French help that had sustained them through 16 years of exile.