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This story was submitted by Maureen Tomison and has been added to the website on behalf of David Sandford with his permission. He fully understands the site and the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

Reynaud and Churchill

I was 12 when the war broke out and was living in Paris with my parents. My father told me the story of one of the most exciting moments in his life. He was the Labour attach茅 at the British embassy in France which, because of the German advance, had moved from Paris to Tours. He told me that he had seen a squadron of aircraft flying overhead. Allied aircraft were few and far between and everyone thought this was another attack by the Germans. In fact it was an RAF aircraft carrying Churchill, escorted by a quadroon of spitfires to a meeting in tours with the French Prime Minister Paul Renaud. My father was one of the officials at that meeting where Churchill proposed the creation of a Franco British empire. This would have unified the two countries so that if Metropolitan France were over-run, they could continue fighting from 鈥淔rance Outre-mer鈥�, overseas France. Unfortunately Renaud refused the offer possibly, because he saw this as a British take over. Churchill was very disappointed, as my father pointed out to me because we had lost the opportunity of unifying the two countries and their empires. With hindsight this could have been the beginning of what we now call the European Union.鈥�
As a footnote to this story, many years later I was present at a speech being given by Ted Heath describing this little known meeting. When I told him my father had been present at that meeting, Sir Edward was delighted to have his version corroborated. 鈥楾his was a lost opportunity,鈥� he said.

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