CRISIS IN FRANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26637, 6 December 1947, Page 7

CRISIS IN FRANCE

Bordering on Revolution NATION-WIDE SABOTAGE Communist Strikers Battle with Troops Rec. 10 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 5. Violent battles with troops and police were reported from all parts of France last night as Communists tried to seize key points to prevent the back-to-work movement among non-Communist strikers. From the northern coalfields to the Riviera, from Brittany and Bordeaux to cities of the east, the story was of riots and sabotage, says the Paris correspondent of the Daily Mail. The worst storm centres appeared to be Marseilles and the Riviera resorts, where French coloured troops are being used for the first time since the riots began. One Paris newspaper last night described the situation in Marseilles as “ bordering on a revolution.” Communist dynamite squads blew up three high tension cables between Bordeaux and Bayonne and in the Lille area the so-called motorised commandos were reported to be driving from village to village beating up miners wanting to return to work.

The Paris correspondent of The Times says that many are asking whether the Government’s emergency legislation for protection of the right to work, which was passed by the National Assembly early yesterday (it has still to pass the Council of the Republic, the successor to the old Senate, • before it becomes law) is adequate to deal with the situation. The Government is believed to be optimistic on the grounds that the Communists have been beaten in the Assembly and in their failure to rally a general strike in the country, says the correspondent, but the fact remains that probably over 1,500,000 men are still on strike and that sabo-. tage continues. Nor has any calculation yet been made of what the strike will have cost the national economy. Strike violence has taken a desperate turn in the. South of France as the back-to-work movement grows in the centre and north. Strikers blocked and barricaded all roads and railways leading into Marseilles. The police used tear gas bombs to break one road block V and in frequent fights arrested more than 200 trouble makers. Tanks and colonial infantry patrolled Marseilles streets along which no civil traffic moved. The police cleared strikers out of the main railway station. Saboteurs dynamited a cliff, blocking the seafront road lead ing into the city. Troops cleared the debris. Saboteurs piled rocks at both ends of the tunnel on the main road from the Marseilles airfield and Air France has suspended flights to the strikebound city. For hours there was' no telephone communication between Paris and the riot centres of Marseilles. Nice, Cannes, Grenoble, Nimes and Toulouse because the strikers had temporarily seized the telephone exchanges. All of these lines had been reopened by nightfall. There have been more than 20 railway sabotage incidents in the past 48 hours. It has been disclosed that the crowded ParisVentimielia express travelled safely at 75 miles an hour over a rail which had been deliberately unbolted near Mulun. The Ministry of the Interior anounced that five railwaymen, described as Communists, had been arrested and confessed to railway sabotage on the southern outskirts of Paris on the night of December 2. ' The Paris shop assistants’ strike which threatened to close stores at the opening of the Christmas shopping

season, has been cancelled. Paris water, electricity, postal, telegraph, and telephone services were working normally to-night. Paris received London mail postmarked November 24. The Communists have called for a general strike of civil servants to-mor row if the Government failed to meet the wage demands. The deaths of 16 mobile guards injured at the Salmson motor works near Paris last night were announced to-day. Four other guards are sitll in hospitaL Mobile guards used tear gas during a clash with several thousand striking miners at a mine at Denain. The strikers used iron bars to attack the guards and the police, who were protecting the mine. Mobile guards in Nice used rifle butts and truncheons against a mob which cornered the police on top of the post office and then tried to occupy the building. Twenty-two persons were admitted to hospital. This was the strikers’ third attempt to seize the building. The police used tear gas to evict the strikers. Strikers in Ain, in .Central France, uncoupled the engine of the ParisGeneva express at Amberieu. put out the engine’s fire, and delayed the train three hours while another engine was brought from Bourg, 35 miles away. Besides two strikers who were killed at Valence, more than 100 were injured and 325 were arrested in clashes in Paris and 10 large provincial towns. The Communists appear to be trying to cut off the French Riviera and Marseilles area from the rest of France by occupation or sabotage of railways and, telephone exchanges and barricading the main roads. The Minister of the Interior, M. Jules Mock, has sent two special administrators from Paris, with special powers to act in the Mediterranean coastal area without consulting Paris, “in the event of grave developments.” Strikers at Cannes occupied the post office, and stopped all services except the automatic telephone. Trains leaving Paris main-line stations to-day were half empty as the result of the derailments yesterday. Most trains are running normally, but the Paris-Toulouse train was diverted from stations which the strikers were occupying. There has been a considerable improvement in the metal and textile industries. „ It is estim ted that only 4000 of 125.000 textile workers are still striking. „ r . . The Ministry of the Interior announced thal members of the national security services and other police forces helping to maintain order against the strikers would be paid, a daily bonus of 100 francs 'about 4s 6d).