French protest over slight

Press, 2 September 1977, Page 6

French protest over slight

NZPA-Reuter Pretoria j France has protested over a South African Government Minister’s “unflattering description” of the French Foreign Minister (Mr Louis de Guiringaud) a French Embassy spokesman has said. ' The South African Finance | Minister (Mr Owen Hor-; wood) referred to Mr del ! Guiringaud in a speech in ; Durban on Tuesday as “the I new little Foreign Minister of France, who when he arrived in Dar-es-Salaam and was confronted by a few protesting blacks, rushed off home to France.” The French spokesman said that a protest had been handed to the South African Foreign Minister (Mr Pik Botha) on French Government instructions.

In Bloemfontein, Mrs Winnie Mandela, a black militant banished to the remote Orange Free State town of Brandfort, has pleaded not guilty to charges of unlawfully receiving visitors and attending a gathering. Mrs Mandela, wife of the imprisoned nationalist leader. Nelson Mandela, was arrested last month at her

home in Brandfort, about 55km from Bloemfontein, where she was banished from Soweto, near Johannesburg, in May.

Under terms of her banishment, Mrs Mandela is allowed only limited visits and cannot attend gatherings. A request for more visits was refused.

A black police sergeant said in evidence that he had kept Mrs Mandela’s house under surveillance and had found two young men in the kitchen of Mrs Mandela’s house. Mrs Mandela said the men were visiting Zinzi, her daughter, who is not under restriction.

In Soweto, black schoolchildren and their parents have been ordered to sign pledges to pay costs of any damage to school property and to obey all school rules or be disciplined before they can enrol. The Central South African Government took over control of all schools in the black township of Soweto on Tuesday in an effort to halt a month-old school boycott by black students protesting unequal education opportunities.