2000 Communist Ex-Soldiers Fight Police on Armistice Day

Grey River Argus, 13 November 1948, Page 5

2000 Communist Ex-Soldiers Fight Police on Armistice Day

In Effort to Hold Own Celebration PARIS, Nov. 11. French Army, Navy and Air Force units marched to Arc de Triomphe where President Auriol laid an Armistice Day wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Bareheaded crowds watched the ceremony. Two thousand Communist ex-ser-vicemen endeavoured to stage an Armistice Day ceremony on their own at the Arc de Triomphe. Fighting broke out between these Communist ex-servicemen and the police in the Champ Elysees. The fighting went on intermittently for four hours, and ten persons were hurt and at least 20 detained, including two Communist Deputies. Later the demonstrators piled barriers (which the police had used to hold back the spectators at the main paraded), and also gratings and beams of wood across the Champs Elysees to form a barricade. Each time the police advanced they were met by a barrage of broken paving stones, torn up from the street. BELGIAN CELEBRATIONS In Brussels, the Regent, Prince Charles, laid a wreath on the tomb of Belgian’s Unknown Warrior. Torches of liberty, relayed from London, Paris and Belgian Congo and all the Belgian provinces led the parade which marched past the tomb. School children throughout the country placed flowers on the graves of Allied dead. Fourteen British “Old Contempfibles” stood in silence on Flanders battlefields and later visited British graves.