MINERS’ STRIKE IN FRANCE

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25638, 29 October 1948, Page 7

MINERS’ STRIKE IN FRANCE

“ Gov eminent Convinced It Has Upper Hand”

ENGINEERS REPORT ON STATE OF PITS

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, October 28. Tb . e French Government is now convinced that by sending troops to the mines it has gained the upper hand and that sooner or later the miners will get tired of the strike. For the first time in more than a week there were no clashes vesterday between strikers and security forces.

The British United Press correspondent at St. Etienne reports that many miners are hungry and short of money. . b . rencb National Assembly’s Defence Commission has voted to discuss a motion seeking a Government statement on the allegation made by the Minister of the Interior (Mr Jules Moch) that the Cominform was financing the strikers. Engineers examining the freed pits report that most will dry out quickly and that there is little danger from firedamp.

Eight strikers arrested at St. Etienne after a pithead incident last week have been given suspended sentences. The Ministry of the Interior has announced that expulsion proceedings have been taken against 52 foreign workers arrested during the demonstrations. &

Fifteen pits in the eastern - paft of the northern basin have been occupied by troops. Ninety-seven pits in the more heavily-concentrated western part of the basin remain in the strikers’ hands. The Ministry of the Interior announced yesterday that 62 per cent, of the strikers in the Lorraine basin had returned to work, and that troops had occupied the Issot pit, the most important pit in the St. Etienne region, without resistance from the miners. The Ministry also announced that a train carrying non-striking miners to work was derailed near Marseilles. No one was hurt. A Ministry spokesman alleged that the derailment was deliberate. The executive committee of the Confederation of Labour has decided to appeal to all seamen to stop all shipments of coal to France, and it has asked railwaymen to consider steps to stop all coal coming into France at frontier points on the railway lines. It has also asked all French workers to go on staging strikes for short periods as a sign of solidarity with the miners.

i Secretary for Information i ,M r r- R I te F rand , 1 ' alter a meeting of the Cabinet, said he could not give pre--1 cise details about what the Government proposed to do about the dockers refusal to unload coal, but he re- ; marked: “I can tell you the Governget tbe coal unloaded.” He : added that the forces of law and order were completely masters of the situation at all points. Mr Mn L. Lewis, president of the united Mme Workers of America, : u J ge , d L to - da .y that President Truman ‘ should press the French Government to halt the shooting of* French coalmin- : ers who are hungry.” Mr Lewis sug- ’ that this should be done through Mr Truman’s control of the expenditure of Marshall Plan funds. • Mr Lewis said that the future of France would be dark indeed if i American money, guns, and bullets ' were used “to shoot, starve, and op- . press French citizens while bureaucrats and the financially powerful in France > subsist on American resources and ■ fight elements of: the population who > are not participating in the largesse of the Marshall Plan.”