General strike in France

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 9

General strike in France

NZPA-Reuter

France is in the grip of a 24-hour general strike, likely to be the most widespread since the 1968 studentworker riots. The stoppage, involving more than five million workers, is in protest against the Government’s austerity programme restricting wage rises and unemployment. It is the first time since 1964 that all the main trade union groupings have biiried their differences and called their members out on the same day. Trains and buses stopped running, power cuts were expected as electricity workers walked out, newspapers were not printed, little or no mail was being delivered, banks, industry and schools shut down. The two most powerful union groupings, the communist General Con-! federation of Labour and the' Left-wing French Confederation of Labour held marches in Paris and other maior cities. Wine-growers in the south of France threw up barricades on main roads. The strike comes as the Opposition alliance of Socialists ; and Communists was forging ahead of the ruling conservative coalition in opinion polls, confident of winning the General Election next March. The secretary-general of the C.G.T. (Mr Georges Seguy. alleged on television that the Government’s economic plan was aimed at helping the privileged and (plunging the workers into austerity.