SERIOUS RIOTING IN FRANCE CONTINUES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 185, 7 August 1935, Page 7

SERIOUS RIOTING IN FRANCE CONTINUES.

WORKERS PROTEST.

Bloodshed in Clashes With Police and Troops.

CABINET MEETING HELD

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraplh—Copyright)

(Received 12 noon.)

PARIS, August 6.

Cabinet this morning discussed the rave of rioting here, at Brest and at .■onion, in the past 24 hours, which is ■isgarded as a serious sympton of the jrowing agitation against the iteonomy campaign. One person has Ij'een killed, and at least 60 injured in the riots, many of the latter being in a serious condition.

Following the arsenal workers' demonstration against cuts, the dockyard workers at Brest this morning refused to resume their work on the cruiser 3unkerque until the guards posted (board were removed.

Finding their demands not met, the workers streamed into other yards stir.•ing up their comrades until the whole dockyard ■was seething. Gendarmes, mobile guards, marines and troops sought to clear the yards, directing the workers to a particular gateway, at which there was a fierce fight. A number of workmen were taken to hospital. When the dockyard was cleared the workers marched through the town singing the Internationale.

Engineer officers of the Transatlantic yompany, including those on the Noriiandie, refused to accept their pay as a irotest against the cuts.

At Brest hundreds of rioters swarmed iver the walls of the railway station in ie afternoon, detached the engine of she Paris express and drove it, whistle blowing defiantly, to the depot sheds, leaving the passengers stranded. The express departed an hour late.

The mob then marched to the police station, tore down the tricolour and replaced it with a square of red cloth. Jacques Henry, a sub-prefect, climbed the flagstaff under a hail of stones and removed the Red flag and unfurled a new tricolour. The crowd jeered at the feat, smashed windows and beat Henry severely before he was rescued by the police.

Several thousand tried to storm the Prefecture Maritime on the Rue de Siam. Using sewer gratings, paving stones and scaffold poles, they broke down heavy gates, but were repulsed by the marine guard posted inside..The mob avenged themselves by reducing the sentry boxes to. matchwood and smashing the windows of neighbouring shops.

An hour later mounted police charged down the Hue de Siaru and cleared the rioters.

Colonial troops charged in different areas under a shower of stones and bottles. Rioters attempted to force the barracks, but the colonial troops repulsed them. The crowd stoned a passing car, in which M. Chalmel, Chief of Police, was struck. The clash with the mobile guards resulted in a rioter being killed and two guards being seriously wounded.

The employees of the gas and electric companies have joined the arsenal rioters. The authorities blame Communists, estimating that 4000 have participated.

In the meantime the dockyard and arsenal are at a standstill and are heavily guarded. Shops in the principal thoroughfares are barricaded.

At Toulon the rioting yesterday was prolonged. A crowd of 2000 wrecked cafes late at night, smashed windows and attacked passers-by, chiefly naval officers. The mob, spurred on by a woman in a red cloak, was charged by the police and a number of people are in hospital.