Grenade Thrown Into Crowded Paris Cafe

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29749, 16 February 1962, Page 9

Grenade Thrown Into Crowded Paris Cafe

(N .Z.P.A .-Reuter—Copyright)

PARIS, February 15.

Violence which claimed 33 lives in Algeria yesterday spread to Paris last night when a grenade was lobbed into a crowded restaurant, wounding three persons. The grenade was flung by a young man with a scarf wrapped around his face, who then leapt on the back of a scooter driven by another youth and escaped.

Police said the attack seemed carefully prepared and a scooter was probably used because the street outside the restaurant, just off the Champs Elysee, is narrow.

The incident might have been more serious had a barman not kicked the grenade away from the customers just before it exploded. The diners included the Belgian Ambassador (Baron Marcel-Henri Jaspar). He was not injured. Two men and a woman were wounded, one of the men seriously.

A plastic bomb exploded last night in a Paris apartment building occupied by Maitre Mohammed Oussedik, the lawyer for the detained Algerian insurgent leader, Mohammed ben Bella. Noone was hurt but 13 families had to be evacuated because of damage. Attacks on Moslems

In the Belcourt suburb of Algiers Europeans last night poured into the streets and attacked Moslems indiscriminately. after a day of violence in the western city of Oran in which troops opened fire on Moslem demonstrators.

The Europeans turned but after a car had sped through a main street spraying machine-gun bullets from a window. A Moslem later shot two Europeans dead. Five Moslems were badly wounded in the ensuing clashes. Earlier, nine Moslems had been killed and eight wounded in Oran when troops and police opened fire and threw hand grenades at mobs trying to break out of the Moslem quarters, the British United Press reported. The riots were in protest against the barrage of 44 bombs set off in the city in the space of an hour early yesterday morning by the

Right-wing Secret Army Organisation (0.A.5.) The troops and police fired into the mobs in an Arab quarter in the southern outskirts of the city, the British United Press report said. Through most of the morning they had thrown grenades at the crowds in a move to fight back an attempt to invade the European section of the city. They made barricades of trucks and barbed wire to try to keep the Moslems back. Troops Open Fire At the point where the troops opened fire they were in danger of being overwhelmed by a wild mob of more than 1000. Shortly after noon the city police chief imposed a strict curfew on the Moslem quarters where the trouble had raged all morning. Only the Army was allowed to enter the districts, which included the sprawling new city suburb and the Lamur district.

After a relative calm at noon, the rioting broke out again.

The British United Press reported that the plastic bomb onslaught began in the early hours of the morning. Police said 18 bombs went off together in the space of a minute.

They exploded in empty narrow streets, in front of Arab cafes,- under parked cars and in courtyard buildings The rest of the 44 bombs went off within an hour in five of the Moslem districts flanking the European quarter.

Fires started by the bomb explosions burned in the grey dawn. At least three ramshackle houses were reported io have been wrecked. Power Failure

The confusion was heightened by a sudden power failure —believed to have been caused by a strike—-

which plunged the city into darkness. The Moslem stone-throwing and shooting prevented police and firemen getting to most of the damage. Police said it was unquestionably a carefully planned attack by the Secret Army Organisation on the pretext of heading off a Moslem demonstration said to be planned for today.

When hundreds of soldiers and police arrived in the “new city” sector where 50,000 Moslems lived they found panic. Scores of Moslems ran half-naked from their homes. The women wailed and men shouted and ran into the streets.

In some places, the police and soldiers came under fire from balconies. Other mobs showered them with stones

and stoned a few European cars which happened to drive by. At one point a Moslem mob tried to break through the cordon by pushing a police lorry in front of them. Police threw more grenades and tear gas bombs to force them back. One of the dead in Oran was a French Army lieutenant. Philippe Jacquot, a son of General Pierre Jacquot, Commander-in-Chief of the N.A.T.O. Central European forces. Yesterday’s death toll was the highest since January 3. when 38 were killed. Of the 33 dead, 21 were Moslems. Eighty-six persons were wounded, 58 of them Moslems. Secret Peace Talks

A Ffench Government source said in Paris yesterday that the secret peace talks with the Algerian insurgents had made good progress. Far-reaching agreement is understood to have been reached already. Hopes are rising daily that a cease-fire will be announced in the next two or three weeks. ,

Three Ministers reported to be engaged in the talks near the Swiss border were absent frdm a meeting of the French Cabinet under President de Gaulle yesterday. They are the Algerian Affairs Minister (Mr Louis Joxe), Mr Robert Buron (Public Works) and Mr Jean de Broglie (Sahara and Overseas Territories). ,

Earlier reports had said the talks would be suspended while the negotiators reported back to Paris and Tunis . yesterday, but this proved to be wrong.

Fiji Hurricane Warning ( N.Z. Press Association) SUVA, February 15. Fijian villagers in the southern-most islands of the group are watching tonight for signs of a hurricane which is expected to pass eastwards to the south of Fiji. A preliminary hurricane warning was given today to Kandavu. 75 miles south of Suva, and the small southern islands of the Lau group in south-east-ern Fiji. If the hurricane keeps its south-east course, the southern islands will get only the gale-force fringe.