French Troops Arrest Hundreds In Casbah

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29389, 16 December 1960, Page 17

French Troops Arrest Hundreds In Casbah

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) ALGIERS, December 15. French Army units and riot police combed the heart of the Casbah last night in an effort to stem further Moslem rioting and agitation. Thousands of steel-helmeted soldiers were sent into the narrow, smelly streets after the curfew. Hundreds of Moslems were led to black police vans, their hands clasped above their heads, reported the American Associated Press.

Some 80,000 people live in the Casbah, frequently crowded 10 to a room.

In demonstrations yesterday Moslems swarmed through the streets of the Casbah, screaming rebel slogans and hurling insults at French troops. Clashes with French troops and police took place throughout the day, and ambulances rushed in and out of Casbah approaches. No-one knew the exact number of wounded, but authorities said no-one was killed. Rioting broke out again yesterday in the east Algerian seaport of Bone and Foreign Legion soldiers opened fire on a crowd of more than 1000 Moslems marching on the European city. The Moslems massed at the Sidi Bouadid cemetery to bury the victims of Tuesday’s rioting, and were soon swept up in a frenzy of anti-French slogan chanting. According to latest reports, only three Moslems were killed but dozens were wounded. The French Delegate-General, Mr Jean Morin, has banned three European organisations blamed by the authorities for sparking off the wave of bloodshed and violence.

Among those banned was the front for a French Algeria, a settler group which has vowed to fight President de Gaulle's policy of self-determination. The F.A.F. claims to have 1,000,000 members, but is believed to have a quarter of that pumber. The stern measures against organisations blamed for inciting or supporting demonstrations were decided after a conference between the Minister of Algeria (Mr Louis Joxe), and Mr Morin.

Decisions were also taken to close for three weeks 68 of the shops which obeyed the strike order.

Dissolution of two other activist organisations—the High School Students’ Association throughout Algeria and the

Algiers branch of the Nationalist Students’ Federation—was announced at the same time.

Twenty-seven judicial inquiries have been opened into attempts on the security of the State, and one for wilful murder. A French Government decree today announced that the referendum would take place on January 8, in spite of the riots. According to political circles in Paris, General de Gaulle may offer the Algerian rebels a onesided cease-fire on the part of the French forces in an attempt to try to save the situation in Algeria. In a broadcast on November 4, he hinted that France might take such a step and order its troops to shoot only when attacked, the British United Press reported. Twenty Moslem Senators have accused the public authorities in Algeria of treating Moslems and Europeans in Algeria by different

standards in suppression of the riots. The Senators said that as a protest they would refuse to take part in the French Senate debate on Algeria. Reports in Madrid say that Pierre Lagaillarde, the “French Algeria” extremist leader, who made his first public appearance yesterday since he fled to Spain, met General Raoul Salan, the former Commander-in-Chief in Algeria, in Madrid yesterday.