STORM CENTRE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 137, 13 June 1927, Page 7

STORM CENTRE.

Jrench Royclist Agitator Defies \ Arrest. V i FREE FIGHT ENSUES. PARIS, June 12. The well-known Royalist, M. Leon Dandet, author and journalist, was the centre of amazing scenes at the offices of his newspaper, "L'Action Francaise," , yesterday. Though due to surrender and undergo ,» term of imprisoment for libelling the driver of the taxi-cab in which his son .HnTlippe was found shot, M. Daudet .refused to go, and said: "If the police me they must fetch me." Hundreds of Royalists who were '■worn in to prevent the arrest of M. i£*udet surrounded the six-storey buildi ing in which his offices are situated, and , constructed barbed wire and sandbag .defences. Others had their pockets bulg- '»?? rev °l vers an d carried mysterious boxes, supposed to contain machine guns, 'into the premises. '_ M. Daudet, addressing the crowd out[taie, said: "I am fighting for the 'honour of my dead son. There are J thousands of resolute men at my back |;who are prepared to face death." j The police are not attempting to take jM. Daudet prisoner, though the siege . is still in progress. This morning he was |!*p defying arrest, and issued a I bulletin saying: "I passed a good night, land am now taking my cafe-au-lait." There was a riot last evening when the ironical cheering of the opponents of M- Daudet's partisans led to a free fight ■with sticks and bludgeons. Then police reinforcements arrived in lorries and dispersed the rioters, 20 of whom were arrested, i

' M. Leon Daudet, editor of "L'Action iTrancaise," man of letters and Royalist agitator, is the son of the brilliant French writer Alphonse Daudet. In certain French I circles he wields a good deal of influence. \x> OT . Bome time he was a deputy for a I Paris constituency, but lost his seat at the May, 1924, elections. His paper is the organ of the monarchists, and one of the ttost outspoken critics of French policy. One of its principal contributors is I Charles Maurras, one of its founders, ; whose works 'were recently placed on the ; Index Purgatorius by the Pope, a ban afterwards extended to "L'Action Franjcaise." Mystery surrounded the death of |M. Daudet's son Phillippe, a lad of 17, who was found shot in a Paris taxi cab in '1925. He was generally believed to have committed suicide, but M. Daudet, in a. violent diatribe against the police, accused them of having connived at the boy's inurder by anarchists. As the result of his allegations the driver of the taxicab in which Phillippe was found dead brought a libel action against him, which resulted in M. Daudet being sentenced to the term of imprisonment which is the subject of the present agitation.