MORE STRIKES

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 32, 2 November 1942, Page 5

MORE STRIKES

Workers Of Vichy France GERMAN TROOPS CALLED IN (British Official Wireless and Press Assn.) (Received November 1, 7 p.m.) LONDON, October 31. Anti-German demonstrations have again broken out in many industrial, centres in occupied France. Vichy is reported to have obtained a new extension of time for the dispatch of workmen to Germany. This is believed to be some time in January. ' Meanwhile an order to workers to report for medical examination has provoked partial strikes in the Annecy region. A general strike has broken out in four places in the Arne Valley and also in Haute Savoie, where hardly a factory at present is working.

The womenfolk of the men who had been ordered to report for medical examination massed outside the depots and frustrated the efforts of the police to permit the doctors to carry out the task. A detachment of German mechanized troops from occupied France has entered Haute Savoie, and the Germans are reported to have arrested three of the strike ringleaders. The Vichy police on Wednesday raided 50 hotels, 350 houses', and 2350 flats and took into custody several of the occupants. “Proud Of You.”

“Hitler is constantly looking at his appalling casualty lists which are mounting up day by day, and on the other side he witnesses the mobilization of the vast manpower and production of the United Nations. This worries him, and he looks round and tries to put pressure on you Jo make up the manpower he is losing,” declared the Minister of Labour, Mr. Beviu, broadcasting to the French workers. He congratulated them on their resistance to the Nazi efforts, abetted by Vichy, to compel them to go to Germany. The fact that the Germans were claiming to mobilize the European workers was based upon the arrogant assumption that the workers were already slaves, said Mr. Bevin, but the workers of the occupied countries do not regard themselves as being at Germany’s disposal. In their hearts all these men and women looked for the day when the enemy would be defeated and liberty re-established. “Workers of France, we are proud of vour resistance. We are glad to see that in the great workers’ centres you have maintained, in face of intense opposition and pressure, the great spirit of liberty that actuates free people throughout the world. We are proud that the workers of the so-called free zone are at one with the comrades of the occupied zone in placing every obstacle in the way of the enemy. “We shall never forget the solidarity which has been shown by our French comrades at this great moment.” /,