TFP Newsletter, Vol. III, No. 5, Pleasantville , N.Y. , 1982, pages 1-3

A COMMUNIQUE OF THE TFPs

Is Freedom of the Press Curtailed Under the Self-Managing Socialist Regime in France ?

The companies that own 6 of the largest French daily newspapers have refused to publish the Message of the 13 TFPs.

Faced with such an unprecedented fact, the TFPs ask: Do publishing companies exposed to self-managing socialist confiscation have complete freedom?

Look in this section for the communique of the thirteen Societies for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property to the public opinion of the West.

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Faced with the fact that six of the largest French daily newspapers have refused to publish their six-page paid advertisement exposing the ambitious designs of French self-managing socialism, the thirteen Societies for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFPs) recently issued a follow-up joint communique. The 2/3 of a page ad, also written by Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, President of the National Council of the Brazilian TFP, asks the question: "Is freedom of the press being curtailed in France today?"

The Communique, "France: The Fist Crushes the Rose," is scheduled to appear in major newspapers in the same countries in which the original six-page Message appeared — over 40 leading dailes have been selected. For example, the new ad has already run in The Washington Post and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ( 2-25-82 ) and The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and the Dallas Morning News ( 2-26-82 ). In addition, new papers have been added to the list such as The Daily Telegraph of London ( 3-2-82 ), Le Geneve Tribune of Switzerland ( 2-27-82 ) and The International Herald Tribune (3-10-82 ).

Early in March, the American TFP conducted a lightning campaign in the nation's capital blanketing Congress and other influential areas with copies of the same Communique.

In less than one day, personalized copies of the advertisement were delivered to the offices of 100 Senators, 435 Congressmen, 65 foreign embassies representing the Free World and 65 of the major news agencies having representation in Washington.

1. The promise

The Communique points out that less than a year after the socialist victory of Francois Mitterrand, France 's self-managing socialism "with a human face" is now showing its true face by crushing one of the most basic freedoms in a democratic regime: the freedom of the press.

2. The doubt

Last December, the TFPs began publishing the six-page ad, "What Does Self-Managing Socialism Mean for Communism: A Barrier? Or a Bridgehead?" by Professor Corrêa de Oliveira. Quoting extensively from the very documents of the French Socialist Party, the TFP message showed that self-managing socialism — in the Mitterrand style — promotes a radical transformation of industrial, commercial and rural enterprises. It also strikes violently at private life. And its goals are international in scope.

The TFPs found no obstacles in publishing the six-page Message as a paid ad in the leading newspapers of the United States, Canada, England, Italy, Portugal, Spain, W. Germany, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela. The newspapers in these countries acted in accordance with the democratic principles they profess.

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In France it was different.

Contrary to these same principles, six major dailies with circulation over 100,000 refused publication. Moreover, two papers that had formally agreed to publish the message, retracted citing no reasons and thus risking a lawsuit for damages and losses.

In view of this, the follow-up Communique notes that this unprecedented refusal can only be explained by the threat that the publishing companies that own these papers live under. Any one of them can suddenly be placed among the ranks of self-managing enterprises by a legislative decision of the socialist-communist majority. The TFPs ask: Is there complete freedom for publishing companies exposed to self-managing confiscation? Is a curtain of silence being drawn around France ?

3. The reality

The TFP Communique concludes:

"This fact is what the TFPs are bringing to the knowledge of the whole West. The same French newspapers will be asked to publish this Communique. But even if there is a new collective refusal, the TFPs hope that the spreading of this Communique outside France may succeed in making it known to a large part of the French people. They also hope that it will open the eyes of the West to all that is contradictory and impracticable in the self-managing promise of socialism-with-freedom.

"This finding has a far-reaching scope. Except for the promise of freedom, all that is left of the self-managing regime is its similarity to communism.

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4. The disappointment

"The Message of the thirteen TFPs about self-managing socialism is making its way far and wide in the world. Along the way, it has met everything: furious hatred, baseless criticisms, inexplicable omissions, longstanding and luminous support from friends who have never let themselves be dishonored by fear, and innumerable new adhesions, some of them unexpected and magnificent.

"This Communique is one more great step along this road. Consistent with the Message, it has to do not only with self-managing socialism, but also with communism. All of this — and that which is yet to happen — will one day be written into History; the epic History of one of the supreme efforts undertaken in signo Crucis (in the sign of the Cross) to steer our agonizing Western Civilization away from the final shipwreck toward which it is letting itself drift.

"After the great campaigns of the TFPs against communism — campaigns which have always been doctrinal and orderly — the communists keep silent. A little later, furious media attacks based merely on distortions or calumnies with no doctrinal content have been unleashed against the TFPs. Will this now happen once again? As the popular French saying has it, 'he who lives will see.'”

The Communique was signed on February 11, 1982 , the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.