RIOTS SPREADING IN FRANCE

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 246, 19 October 1942, Page 5

RIOTS SPREADING IN FRANCE

LOYALISTS ATTACK TRAITORS. INFLUX OF GESTAPO AGENTS. P.A. Cable. LONDON, Oct. 18. Assassinations and attacks on Germans and German sympathis,ers are spreading in occupied France. according to- reports reaching Vichy. ~ There ha-ve been many deaths and a large number of people injured in riots and disturbances. Following up-on the serious disorders in Lycns (unoccup-ied France), strikes are also spreading. _ The Swiss radio reports that Na • tional 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 front ier 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 s-tations at Charbonnieres. six miles from Lyons. Other agents have arrived at Crepieux le Pape, west of L-a Tour du and at C'essieu, v/est of la- Tour du Pin. The agents are equipped with French identity ca-rds and are granted the same powei's as French detectives, while the French police. inspectors have been ordered to place themselves at the agents' dispcsal. FRONTIER GUARDS STRENGTHENED. The railway station at Lyons was the s-cene of an explosion in which carriages for workers who- were being taken to Germany were des-troved. It is also reported that the Fench frontier guards have been s-trengthened to- prevent workers for Germany from fleeing. The Daily Express coiTespcndent on the French frontier says that Lyons, Chambery and Am'oerieu (mainly in the Rhone Valley in eastern France1) are the- principal centres "of the1 disorders. Riots broke out in these places on Thursday when the narrtes of men chosen for labour in Germany were exhibited ■Workers at Chambery refused to mo-ve the trains, a-nd rioters at Amberieu destroyed rolling-stock and locomotives. Fighting with the police and bombthrowing occurred in the centres where the workers struek, and also demonstrations- in the strcets. Troops were called out and used grenades against the crowds, and the troops afterwards oecupded factories, stations and municipal buildings and patrolled the streets with armoured cars. Women at Annecv paraded with placards, "We won't let our husbands go to Germany." The Times- correspondent on the French frontier savs tha-t 40 persons were killed and 200 wounded at Lyons, and 15 were killed and 200 wounded at Amberieu. Disturbances were a-lso reported at Marseilles, Toulouse and Tarbes.

GERMAN SLAVE HUNT. The Vichy news agency admits that strikes occurred at railway workshops in the Lyo-ns' regio-n, "apparently because o-f an erroneous interpretation of the conditio-ns under which the recruiting of labour in excha-nge for wai1 pri&oners- is being carried out." It adds that work was resumed normally aft-er several hours on the intervention of loca-1 authorities and the Government without serious incident. Vichy radio said that three tram lcads 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. The Germans are now co-mbing every factory in France for skilled workers. Employers have been instructed to prepare batchesi, including engineers- and works managers in the hope that the present resistance to the departure of men of Germany may be overcome if the men from tlie same factory work together in Germany. The Swiss newspa-per "Tribune de Lausianne" says, "Feeling is running very high. The Lava-1 Government's attem-pts to provide Germany with manpo-wer are meeting with tenacious opposition, which it would be foolish to ignore' if the situation among o-ur neigh-bours beyond the Jura is sensiblv judged."