WILD SCENES IN FRANCE

Southland Times, Issue 24878, 19 October 1942, Page 5

WILD SCENES IN FRANCE

Strikes Break Out (Rec. 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, October 16. Assassinations and attacks on Germans and German sympathizers are spreading in Occupied France, according to reports reaching Vichy. There have been many deaths and a large number of injured in riots and disturbances. Following serious disorders in Lyons the strikes are spreading through Occupied France. The Swiss radio reports that National Guards at Saint Etienne were forced to clear a number of factories, while at Grenoble and Chambery more workers are on strike. ‘Reports from the French frontier state that 10,000 men are already involved in mass strikes. Tension is growing in the Lyons area, to which large numbers of Gastapo agents have been drafted. More than 100 are at present searching for secret radio stations at Charbonnieres, six miles from Lyons. Other agents have arrived at Crepieux le Pape, north-east of Lyons, and Cessieu, west of Latourdupin. The agents are equipped with French identity cards and are granted the same powers as French detectives. French police inspectors have been ordered to place themselves at the agents’ disposal. EXPLOSION AT STATION The railway station at Lyons was the scene of an explosion. Carriages for workers being taken to Germany were destroyed. It is also reported that French frontier guards have been strengthened to prevent workers for Germang fleeing. The Daily Express’s correspondent on the French frontier says Lyons, Chambery and Amberieu were the principal centres of disorders. Riots broke out in these places on Thursday when the names of men chosen for labour in Germany were exhibited. Workers at Chambery refused to move the trains and rioters at Amberieu destroyed rolling stock and locomotives. Fighting with the police and bomb-throwing occurred in centres where the workers struck and demonstrated in the streets. Troops were called out and used grenades against the crowd. The troops afterwards occupied factories, stations and municipal buildings and patrolled the streets with armoured cars. Women at Annecy paraded with placards: “We won’t let our husbands go to Germany.” The correspondent of The Times on the French frontier says that 40 persons were killed and 200 were wounded at Lyons «and 15 were killed and 200 wounded at Amberieu. Disturbances are also reported at Marseilles, Toulouse and Tarbes. The Vichy News Agency admits that strikes occurred at railway workshops in the Lyons region, “apparently owing to an erroneous interpretation of the conditions under which the recruiting of labour in exchange for war prisoners is being carried out.” It adds that work resumed normally after several hours on the intervention of the local authorities and the Government without serious incident.

Vichy radio said that three trainloads 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 north-western France, from which both men and women have been drafted. More women have been drafted from the same mill. Reports from Paris state that sabotage is continuing throughout the country. Crops of grain in the storehouses are being burned. SEARCH FOR WORKERS

The Germans are now combing every factory in France for skilled workers. Employers have been instructed to prepare batches, including engineers and works managers, in the hope that the present resistance to the departure of men to Germany may be overcome if men from the same factory work together in Germany. The Swiss newspaper Tribune de Lausanne says: “Feeling is very high. The Laval Government’s attempts to provide Germany with man-power are meeting with tenacious opposition, which it would be foolish to ignore if the situation among our neighbours beyond the Jura is sensibly judged.” Dr Boening, German Commissar for Man-Power in Holland, demanded 70,000 skilled Dutch workers for Ger-

many to reinforce the 300,000 Dutch already in Germany. Thirty thousand skilled Dutch metalworkers were removed from their jobs last month and sent to Germany. Skilled Dutchmen are conscripted by German foremen appointed to Dutch undertakings as “trustees” for the workmen. The skilled workers are being replaced by unskilled part-time workers and the unemployed, of which Dr Boening estimates there are still 100,000. The New York Herald Tribune’s Washington correspondent says every town in France has completed blacklists of persons who will be killed on the day of France’s liberation. “One million Frenchmen will be slaughtered unless preventive action is taken,” asserted M. Andre Philip, Commander of the Interior with the French National Committee. He said he believed civil war would be averted only if General de Gaulle makes a direct personal appeal to the French people to refrain from private vengeance when the United Nations forces land in France.