STRIKES IN FRANCE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27124, 21 August 1953, Page 9

STRIKES IN FRANCE

Some Workers Back At Jobs

< N ' Z ' Press Association —Copyright) (Rgg - 10 P-m.) PARIS, August 20. The French strike wave, now in its third .week, today threatened to spread to hitherto unaffected branches of private industry but at the same time the French Government reported a steady trickle of strikers resuming work in the postal services, the railways and transport services, bringing the total number of idle workers in France down to about 1,000,000. New strikes, called by trade union groups last night, will affect the building industry, seamen and dockers ar 7. c ay s pare parts and tyre workers. At the main Renault works in Paris where nearly 40,000 workers turn out tractors, station waggons, and cars the strike which affected about 2000 workers yesterday was expected to spread today.

In Nantes a non-striking railway worker was injured last night in a scuffle with strikers who held up a Paris-bound train for three hours. Armed security guards drove the strike pickets from the station. A full meeting of the Cabinet yesterday reaffirmed the stand of the Prime Minister (Mr Joseph Laniel) for no more talks with the workers until the strike is called off. The strikers returned to work in some centres today, but stiffened their resistance in others. Most of the discomforts of the first days of the great strike wave are over now, and it seems that France is rapidly learning to live with her social unrest.