In a New Year message President Georges Pompidou last night (Thursday, 31 December 1970) urged the French people to pursue friendship with other peoples and regain a taste for discipline and a spirit of tolerance at home.

Speaking on television from the Elysee Palace, M. Pompidou said that in the past year France had lost its greatest citizen, General de Gaulle. Looking ahead, he commented that the 845,000 French children born in 1970 would be adults in the 21st Century and a stronger, more prosperous and more just France should be built for them.