RAILWAY STRIKE IN FRANCE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25206, 10 June 1947, Page 7

RAILWAY STRIKE IN FRANCE

Use Of Road And Air Services GOVERNMENT’S PLAN (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) /Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, June fl. The strike of French railway workers has spread to more towns, and passenger traffic is now suspended nearly all over the country. Road and air services are to be used to link Pans with the rest of the country. The Minister of Transport (Mr Jules Moch) announced that from to-day French military and naval aeroplanes would fly over commercial air routes, army lorries would carry priority goods, and a Government bus service would operate in certain parts of the country as part of the Government’s emergency plan to keep transport moving during the railway strike. Railway union leaders appealed to the Prime Minister, Mr Ramadier, to reopen negotiations to end the strike, but there was no response from the Government, which announced that its long-distance bus service would be trebled and the extra aeroplane service would be augmented to-day and further increased to-morrow if the strike was prolonged. The Ministry of Transport has appealed to all citizens to show civic zeal at a time of national crisis. The Paris correspondent of the “Daily Express” says that the Government appears to be “digging in” for a long siege. The correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says that strike pickets are patrolling the lines and only trains carrying food are allowed to run.

Most of the Paris newspapers sympathise with the strikers, most of whom receive only £2O a month, but the Government has said that the national economy could not stand the burden of paying out the additional £60,000,000 annually required to meet the strikers’ demands.

The Paris correspondent of “The Times” says that the Government refuses to discuss terms until the strike is called off, while the union refuses to resume work until the Government conceded its principal demands. The French Union of Government Employees, covering more than 1,000.000 men and women, has decided to stage a 24-hour token strike on June 13. The strike would deprive Paris of underground and bus transport and all public services except those essential for the public safety. Travellers Stranded Workers at Strasbourg have joined the railway strikers, closing the last alternative holiday route to Switzerland and effectively blocking thousands of British tourists from returning home, says the correspondent of Reuters in Paris. The British embassies and consulates are giving the “refugees” a subsistence allowance of £2 a day. Many have spent the last of their allowance of £75. The Calais correspondent of the “Daily Mail” says that the port has become a clearing house for thousands of stranded travellers, with tired, hungry tourists who caught the last trains from Paris rubbing shoulders with others who have just arrived from Dover, in spite of official warnings. Some of the new arrivals are hiring taxis and spending £5O to £6O to get to Paris. Most of the stranded travellers had to subsist on dry rolls and water supplied by the railway company, but others were overwhelmed by the hospitality of the citizens of Calais, who distributed parcels of food and flasks of wine and refused payment. Six hundred passengers from America were forced to remain aboard the trans-Atlantic liners Ernie Pyle and Marine Falcon because the railway strike makes it impossible for them to leave Le Havre. Reports from the ports say that food and coal cargoes are accumulating as railway waggons become scarce. The Golden Arrow express returned to London late on Saturday night, bringing back 70 persons who, earlier in the day, had spent two hours on French soil. Many others are returning by roundabout crossChannel routes from holidays in Switzerland. Special trains took some to London, but those with longer journeys home faced a night on Victoria station. In London the British Foreign Office has chartered four aircraft, which will each do two trips from Paris to London to-day to help stranded British tourists. In addition, British European Airways will run three extra trips. The British Embassy in Paris is trying to get special buses or cars to take 200 British subjects who are stranded in Paris to the coast. The British military mission is sending lorries to Calais. More than 40,000 British holidaymakers are stranded in France, Switzerland, and Italy.