Washington, D. C., November 9, 1942

White House news release.

The representative of this Government at Vichy has reported that last evening M. Laval, Chief of the Government at Vichy, notified him that diplomatic relations between Vichy and this Government had been severed. I regret this action on the part of M. Laval.

He is evidently still speaking the language prescribed by Hitler.

The Government of the United States can do nothing about this severance of relations on the part of the Vichy Government.

Nevertheless, no act of Hitler, or of any of his puppets, can sever relations between the American people and the people o France. We have not broken relations with the French. We never will.

This Government will continue as heretofore to devote its thought, its sympathy and its aid to the rescue of the forty-five million people of France from enslavement and from a permanent loss of their liberties and free institutions.