CRISIS IN FRANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26630, 28 November 1947, Page 5

CRISIS IN FRANCE

WAGES PLAN REJECTED

PREMIER’S APPEAL FAILS

VIOLENCE FOLLOWS FURTHER

STRIKES

PARIS, Nov. 26. After a broadcast announcement by the Premier, M. Robert Schuman, of his Government’s plan to deal with the wages and prices crisis, 18 of the largest trade unions in France announced that they found his proposals “ unacceptable.” M. Schuman announced a basic wage increase of 150 C francs (about £3 2s) a month for manual workers and £2 8s for clerical workers. The Government was going to increase family allowances and war pensions. Appealing to French workers to examine their consciences and return to work, M. Schuman said a continuation of the strikes would be catastrophic. France had reached a grievous moment in her history, and the entire nation was menaced. Certain people were trying to make political capital ou/ of France’s misery. The C.G.T. conference of trade union secretaries concluded its talks while M. Schuman was broadcasting. The conference issued a communique saying that the reply to the Government should come from the separate unions. The C.G.T., therefore, invited the unions to take any necessary decisions, and at the same time invited leaders of striking unions to confer immediately. Violence has flared up m France as further strikes add to the country's paralysis. Clashes with Police Twenty thousand strikers marching towards the prefecture in Lyons clashed with the police, who used tear gas to stop them. The strikers, who began the march after attending a meeting of the Communist-controlled General Confederation of Labour, found police barricades across all the streets leading to the prefecture, and charged the police. Some police and strikers were injured. Railwaymen, angered at the partial collapse of the Communist “all-out" strike call, tesorted to violence in attempts to prevent trains running. They invaded stations, forcing passengers to alight. _gnd drove the engines and coaches into sidings. Three hundred railwaymen completely blocked the tracks at Douai on the main Paris-Lille line. At Choisy-le-Roi a group of strikers forced the driver from his cabin and left the passengers stranded at the station.

Trade union leaders, including the non-Communist, Leon Jouhaux, made no attempt to hide their anger when leaving M. Schuman’s office after hearing the Government’s plan for dealing with the crisis.

M. Jouhoux said: “I have an unfavourable opinion of the Government’s proposals, and I fear union representatives will have the same impression.’’ M. Jouhoux and the Communist leader, Benoit Franchon, after seeing M. Schuman, went to a conferferehce of the secretaries of all of France’s national trade union organisations. It is feared the conference may issue orders calling a general strike. Paris Transport Paralysed Reuter’s Paris correspondent gives this summary of the strike position: Paris Post Offices gave only restricted service and six are completely shut down. Troops began, and will continue, a restricted mail delivery. Two million civil servants await the Government’s answer to their wage demands and strike threat. The C.G.T. called all builders to join the strike. The Paris police voted on a strike call, the results of which will be known to-Ynorrow. More and more gasworkers in Paris stopped work, anj the electricity strike at Rouen is expected to spread. All ports have stopped work, and most of the pits in the- northern coalfields, including the Fas de sCalais. are idle. Paris transport workers, excluding those on omnibus services, decided to strike to-mor-row. The police said they ordered 20 Russians living in France to leave the country because they were “ taking too great an interest in French affairs.” Ministry of the Interior officials said that all the Russians in France would not be purged, but there might be further arrests.

A Soviet Embassy communique on the deportations, claimed that an organisation called “ Soviet citizens in France ” was merely to speed the repatriation of Russian citizens whose return the French authorities were hindering. The Ministry of the Interior also announced that 19 “ undesirable persons" had been expelled from the country. They include several White Russians who had acquired Soviet nationality in response to propaganda appeals. They had been arrested at Marseilles and other parts of France where there had been social disorders and taken to the frontier by car. The group included the president, two general secretaries, and the treasurer of the “ Society of Patriotic Union.” STRIKE CALL DENOUNCED Rec. 11 p.m. PARIS. Nov. 27. The non-Communist minority of the C.G.T. issued a communique denouncing the Communist-led move for a general strike and calling on workers lo return to their jobs. The communique said that the Government’s proposals were not entirely satisfactory, but they were the first step towards satisfying the workers’ demands. A general strike would be prejudicial to the interests of the workers, which were inseparable from the interests of the nation. Tlie French National Cartel of Engineers and Technical Advisers, responding to the C.G.T.’s strike call, called on its members early to-day to join the strike movement.