Serious Implications In Beef War

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30269, 23 October 1963, Page 13

Serious Implications In Beef War

(Special Crtpdt NZPA.) LONDON, October 22. It is not only the price of beef which b at stake in the war between French butchers, particularly Parisian ones, and the French Government, says the "Daily Telegraph’s” Paris correspondent. The implications of the battle, he says, are much more serious and could af-

feet the whole French economy.

“If the French Government succeed- In holding or bringing down the price then it may prevent wholesale demands for wage increases. If it fails then a whole series of demands for such increases can be expected,” he says. Already railwaymen are coming out On a 24-hour strike on Wednesday for better conditions and miners can be expected to make trouble

too unless the prices are stabilised or brought down. Curiously enough, it is not the Communists who are taking the lead in demand for higher wages. The most intransigent union is in fact the Christian Workers’ Union and it is they who are setting the pace. "Originally there was little public sympathy with the butchers but the Government’s propaganda is backfiring. By stressing the fact

that multiple stores and supermarkets sell beef it inevitably antagonises many other small shopkeepers who are feeling competition from these coliossi.

“Government propaganda is also at times apt to be misleading. Every night in thousands of French homes the wife tries to explain to the wage earner the discrepancies between the prices she pays and those quoted by the Government,” says the correspondent