FRENCH STRIKES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 40, 26 November 1938, Page 5

FRENCH STRIKES

RAPID SPREAD OF TROUBLE.

GOVERNMENT’S DRASTIC MOVE

BAN ON COMMUNIST PARTY

(United Press Association—Copyrignt.) PARIS, November 25.

The Prime Minister of France (M. Daladier) intends to dissolve the Communist Party because of its refusal to obey the social law decrees. The French Government has banned all open-air meetings arranged to be held in the Paris area to-morrow.

The number of strikers throughout France is estimated, at 100,000. Resistance to the now recovery decrees is steadily stiffening, in spite of employers’ protests to the Premier.

Twenty-five thousand miners in the Valenciennes district were called out to demonstrate their solidarity with the metal workers.

Eight thousand miners held up 2000 Mobile Guards en route to evacuate the men from the surface works at Denain. The strikers seized a coal train, drove it to a level crossing, and dumped 20 trucks full of coal on the railway line, and fortified the spot with boards, and beams. Two hundred men, armed with spades, bars, • and stocks, mounted the barricade and defied the Guards, while thousands of others,, reinforced by crowds of inhabitants of Denain, massed behind them,.

The Sub-Prefect, failing to persuade the strikers to withdraw, ordered the Guards to' charge. A pitched battle ensued. The Guards defeated the strikers( who counter-attacked and overturned a lorryful of Guards, who dismounted and fought their . way through the strikers with their riflebutts.

The strikers seized press cameras to prevent the employment of photographs as evidence against them. Baffled, the authorities summoned Reinforcements from Lille, and eventually an agreement was reached by which the Guards retired, amid jeers, and the strikers removed the barrier.

The mining and metal industries in Northern France are at a standstill.

The police finally cleared the Renault works at 1 p.m., but only after using tear gas.

CHARGES AGAINST THE MEN.

COMBINING FOR ARMED RE-

BELLI ON

(Independent Cable Service.) (Received This Day, 10.40 a.m.) PARIS, November 25.

The police announce that 290 of the 700 arrested after the disturbances at the Renault works are being kept in custody. They will be charged with combining for armed rebellion.

.GENERAL STRIKE ON THURSDAY

FOUR MILLION WORKERS. (Received This Day, 10.5 a.m.) LONDON, November 25. The Paris correspondent of “The Evening News” says that the Trades Union Executive decided to call a 24hour general strike of 4,000,000 workers next Thursday.