GRAVE RIOTS IN FRANCE

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 20, 19 October 1942, Page 5

GRAVE RIOTS IN FRANCE

Under Both Regimes WORKERS RESIST; MANY KILLED

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received October 18, 7 p.m.) LONDON, October 16.

Assassinations and attacks on Germans and German sympathizers are spreading in occupied France, according to reports reaching Vichy. There have been many deaths and a large number of people inj’ured in riots and disturbances.

Following upon the serious disorders in Lyons (unoccupied France), strikes are also spreading.

The Swiss radio reports that National Guards at St. Etienne were forced to clear a number of factories, while at Grenoble and Chambery further workers are on. strike.

Reports from the French frontier state that 10,000 men are already involved in mass strikes, and tension is growing in the Lyons area, to which large numbers of Gestapo agents have been drafted. More than 100 of these agents are at present searching for secret radio stations at Charbonnieres, six miles from Lyons. Other agents have arrived at Crepieux le Pape, north-east ,of Lyons, and at Cessieu, west of la Tour du Pin. The agents are equipped-with French identity cards and are granted the same powers as French detectives, while the French police inspectors have been ordered to place themselves at the agents’ disposal. Labour Trains Stopped.

The railway station at Lyons was the scene of an explosion in which carriages for workers who were being taken to Germany were destroyed. It is also reported that the French frontier guards have been, strengthened to prevent workers for Germany from fleeing. The “Daily i Express” correspondent on the French frontier says that Lyons, Chambery and Amberieu (mainly in the Rhone Valley in eastern France) are the principal centres of the disorders. Riots broke out in these places on Thursday when the, names of men chosen for labour in Germany were exhibited. Workers at Chambery refused to move the trains, and rioters at Amberieu destroyed rolling-stock and locomotives. Fighting with the police and bombthrowing occurred in the centres where the workers struck and demonstrated in the streets. Troops were called out and used grenades against the crowds, and the troops afterward occupied factories, stations and municipal buildings and patrolled the streets with armoured cars. Women at Annecy paraded with placards, “We won’t let our husbands go to Germany.” “The Times” correspondent on the French frontier says that 40 persons were killed and 200 wounded at Lyons, and 15 were killed and 200 wounded at Amberieu. Disturbances were also reported at Marseilles, Toulouse, and Tarbes. . “Feeling Very High.” The Vichy news agency admits that strikes occurred at railway workshops in the Lyons region, “apparently because of an erroneous interpretation of the conditions under which the recruiting of labour in exchange for warprisoners is being carried out." It adds that work was resumed normally after several hours on the intervention of the local authorities and the Government without serious incident. Vichy radio said that three train loads of French workers from both occupied and unoccupied France, including women, left for Germany last night. The women came from a weaving- mill near Angers, in northwestern France, from which both men and women were drafted. Reports from Paris state that sabotage is continuing throughout the country, crops, grain and storehouses being burned. The Germans are now combing every factory in France for skilled workers. Employers have been instructed to prepare batches, including engineers and works managers in the hope that the present resistance to the departure of men to Germany may

be overcome if the men from the same factory work together in Germany. The (Swiss newspaper “Tribune de Lausanne” says, “Feeling is running very high. The Laval Government’s attempts to provide Germany with manpower is meeting with tenacious opposition, which it would be foolish to ignore if the situation among our neighbours beyond the Jura is sensibly judged.” It was officially announced in Vichy yesterday that Cabinet had approved of the strongest measures being taken against the authors and accomplices of acts threatening the security of the State which were committed with arms and explosives “parachuted on to French territory.”

A report states that a- bomb on Thursday night wrecked the headquarters of M. Doriot’s Fascist party in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. There were no casualties.