AUSTERITY BUDGET

Chronicle (Levin), 25 June 1947, Page 5

AUSTERITY BUDGET

Press Assn.-

French Plan Adopted After Bitter Debate

By Telegraph

■Copyrighl

Received Wednesday, 9.45 a.m. PARIS, June 24. The Assembly, after aii all night session, adopted the "austerity Budget" by 302 to 241 votes, with 59 abstentions. The debate lasted 16 hours and was virtually nonstop, the Communists bitterly .opposing the plan throughout. M. Ramadier's Government emerged so greatly weakened from the successful vote on its austerity proposals that lobbyists predicted it would not survive more than a few weeks. The Budget means that the State Will get nine per cent. more money out of the taxpayer than was contemplated i'n the original Budget. It will provide the Government with about £83,000,000 of new revenue and £104,170,000 of economies. The ordinary Frenchman fears an increased cost of living, and the public is now back in the inflationist panic which M. Blum checked by his price reduetion campaig'n in December. The strike wave is spreading as a result of the adoption of the austerity Budget. A two-hour stoke occurred at Marseilles, where tens of thousands of workers marched through the streets chanting, "Down with the Schumann Plan." Protest strikes are increasing in the coalfields of northern France where 15,000 are reported to have ceased work.