French students' call to unions

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34132, 20 April 1976, Page 17

French students' call to unions

(New Zealand Press Association—Copyright! TOULOUSE, April 19. The leaders of France’s 800,000 university students have called on the trade unions to join their battle against proposed education reforms, and to present a common front to “the Government’s policy of repression and blackmail.”

The call came at the end! of 15 hours of speeches at al conference of student leaders meeting in Toulouse to discuss further measures against the reforms, which, they say, will give industry too great a say in university education. The Government maintains that the reforms are necessary because of the country’s economic situation. The involvement of the powerful Left-wing workers unions in student protests was a vital element in the upheaval in May. 1968, that almost toppled the Government of Genera] Charles de Gaulle. While the Socialist and Communist Parties have expressed formal support for the students’ cause, their allied union groupings have shown little enthusiasm for active involvement.

The Toulouse meeting also called for an extension of the week-long students’ strike that has affected most of the country’s 75 universities and university colleges.

! The student leaders say That the strike should continue after the Easter Holidays, and have set next Friday as a second day of national action against the proposed reforms. To emphasise their determination to co-ordinate their protests with those of other social groups, the students voted yesterday to send representatives to Montpellier, in southern France, on April 29, when winegrowers are due to hold a demonstration against the importation of cheap Italian wine.