Paris Police Break Up Demonstration

Press, Volume C, Issue 29702, 21 December 1961, Page 8

Paris Police Break Up Demonstration

(N .Z.P.A -Reuter—Copyright) PARIS, December 20. Police last night baton-charged thousands of Parisians demonstrating against the Secret Army Organisation (0.A.5.) and about 30 were injured. Twenty police were also injured in the clash near the City Hall.

After the baton charge the demonstrators regrouped while 1000 riot police cordoned off streets round the City Hall. The demonstrators defied a police ban to march through the streets to protest against the bomb blasts and violence of the anti-Gaullist O.A.S. They clashed briefly with police at the wide Place de la Bastille, the shrine of French Republicans. About 3000 set off for the Town Hall shouting: “O.A.S. assassins,” and “Fascism shall not pass.” The police, engaged in fighting the 0.A.5., protested yesterday against the ban on the demonstration saying it raised a question of conscience for them, but the ban stayed. Earlier, Left-wing organisations had staged a symbolic 15-minute stoppage in protest against O.A.S. violence and also for peace in Algeria. The stoppage, called by trade unions, professional associations, and cultural organisations. affected trains, buses, schools, the Metro (underground) and a number of public services. March Broken Up Police broke up yesterday’s march with baton charges as it neared the City Hall. Several people, including two Socialist and one Communist municipal councillors, were injured by blows with rifle butts and batons. Twenty demonstrators, suffering from head wounds, were treated in a first aid post after the baton charge. The demonstrations and strike reflected rising concern at the steady increase in violence by the O.A.S. of the fugitive former Army general Raoul Salan, one of the leaders of the April military putsch in Algiers. The Left-wingers see in the O.A.S a danger of Fascism

and an obstacle to negotiate peace in Algiers. Its activities in Algeria, where it has carried out numerous killings—which it describes as executions of traitors—have spread to metropolitan France. More than 200 plastic explosions in France this year—including three yesterday—are blamed on the 0.A.5.. as are death threats against Gaullist leaders and attempts to extort funds.