POLICE PREPARED FOR DISORDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26629, 27 November 1947, Page 5

POLICE PREPARED FOR DISORDER

STRIKES SPREAD IN FRANCE

PARIS, Ncv. 25. Although minority “ back-to-work movemnts ” have developed in some Industries in France, more workers have downed tools in others. The police are prepared for disorder, and the Prime Minister, M. Schuman, has been discussing with his Ministers measures to maintain order, and to “assure the right to work.” His Cabinet met to night, and tomorrow it will approve the programme to be submitted to the Assembly for approval. One point to be decided is by how much the basic wage is to be increased. Meanwhile, the Railway Workers' Union has ordered a total strike of railway workers for to-night. The strike call is expected to halt even the intermittent train services kept running during the past week. A few major railway lines continued running skeleton services to-day, but the strikers are taking action to prevent this, and they have blocked some lines. In Lyons they interfered with the signal system. There is no change in the dock strike, which has tied up every French port. Trouble is expected at Bordeaux, where war veterans and ex-members of the resistance movements arranged to unload food cargoes, and the police are ready for it. The railway strikes have already dislocated the service of food supplies. Reduced quantities of meat, milk, and vegetables are coming into Paris. Strikers to-day unloaded mill: for children. The Government announced that it has 10,000 tons of dried milk in reserve, and will use military transport if the strikes continue. . The Paris postal workers’ strike collapsed 24 hours after it started. Nearly all the employees of the central post office reported for duty, ignoring the handful of strike pickets posted outside. , , More than 1000 striking dockers and seamen at Boulogne stormed the . town’s railway station in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent trains leaving. Railwaymen at the depot, although outnumbered, resisted the strikers. Several dockers, however, broke through and surged on to the track in front of a departing train, _ but they jumped aside when the train started moving. Jlousewives in Marseilles have been queuing since 5 a.m. to-day outside bakers’ shops because bread is getting short owing to the almost total strike in France’s second city. Strike pickets tried to stop Government-owned motor buses, and overturned one. The Marseilles transport system is at a standstill.