PARIS STUDENTS TO DEFY RALLY BAN

Press, Issue 32535, 19 February 1971, Page 9

PARIS STUDENTS TO DEFY RALLY BAN

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PARIS, February 18. Radical students plan to carry on with a rally this afternoon at the Bastille in defiance of a Government ban on all demonstrations for the next two days.

The radicals are protesting against the detention and imprisonment of students—particularly the imprisonment for three months of 18-year-old Gilles Guiot on charges of punching a policeman during a demonstration. The Government ban on protests for 48 hours was announced last night amid a political dispute over the treatment of young radicals and after a day of demon-

strations and strikes by teachers and pupils. The protests were mostly peaceful, but the school Guiot attends was shut for the third day as staff and pupils said that he took no part in the demonstrations of which he was accused. They were particularly aroused by the fact that he had been sentenced one day after his arrest, on the evidence of only one policeman and was refused provisional release pending his appeal—due to be heard on Friday. In a statement issued shortly after midnight, the National Union of French Students (U.N.E.F.) said it deplored the Government ban which it called “a new violation of basic freedoms.” The statement also called for action against police whom it claimed had beaten up another student, Richard Deshayes, in a street incident

The student rally has been called at the Place de la Bastille—site of the famous prison tom down during the French Revolution—for 5 p.m., local time. New strains have been caused in the ruling Gaullist

Party by Mr Rene Tomasini. its secretary-general, who accused judges of cowardice in sentencing radical students too lightly. His remarks to a press luncheon met with an immediate rebuke from President Georges Pompidou, the Prime Minister (Mr Jacques Chaban-Delmas) and the Interior Minister (Mr Rene Pleven). In a statement issued after a Cabinet meeting yesterday, the Government said that the magistrature must remain immune from such attacks, and Mr Tomasini later said he had not intended to question the honour of French judges. The Government however, still faces the possibility of more criticism, embarrassing in the face of municipal elections scheduled for next month. The ban imposed last night was believed to be aimed at stopping public protests until after Guiot’s appeal is heard on Friday, and quelling any possible repetition of the student troubles which grew into riots and nearly toppled the Government in May, 1968.