PARIS CELEBRATES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 222, 16 June 1936, Page 9

PARIS CELEBRATES

Communists Stage Victory Festival TERMINATION OF STRIKES By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, June 14. The “Daily Mail’s” Paris correspondent says that, marking the termination of the majority of the strikes, hundreds of thousands of employees who are resuming work to-morrow inarched in orderly files from their workshops in bodies. The men afterward returned to many of the factories and spent some hours removing revolutionary mural drawings and notices. The “Manchester Guardian’s” Taris correspondent says that while racegoers representing half of Paris went to Chantilly to see the French Derby, the other half spent the afternoon at a victory festival organised by the Communist Party at the Velodrome Buffalo, a vast open-air stadium in the working-class suburb of Montrouge. Everything was well organised, flags and banners being used on a colossal scale. A hundred thousand people crowded the grandstands, while 100.000 stood in the sunny arena, which was bisected by a raised gangway leading to the speakers’ forum. Tricolours alternated with red flags, and banners inscribed “Free, strong, happy France,” floated at each end of the stadium. Everyone wore red emblems. A huge picture of the late Henri Barbusse adorned the speakers’ platform. A band played revolutionary tunes, while squads of victorious strikers bearing banners displaying hammer and sickle badges paraded the gangway. As the crowds cheered for the Soviets suddenly four great flags were broken from flagpoles in the middle of the arena. These were examples of a newly-devised national flag of Soviet France, namely, a red field quartered with the tricolour, the Communist hammer and sickle appearing between the golden letters R.F. on the fly. Here was a strange vision of the new France in the making. The names of 22 victims of Fascism who have been killed in street fights in the past two years were read out and a drum tapped a requiem after each name, the band finally playing a Russian funeral march. Speakers delivered addresses triumphantly recording the result of the strikes and prophesying a more prosperous future for the workers. BOUND TO COME Devaluation of Franc OPINIONS IN LONDON London, June 14. Despite M. Blum’s declaration that he does not intend to devalue the franc yet, the franc is still the subject of recurring selling pressure. The city is adhering to the view that, while devaluation may be temporarily staved off, ultimately it is inevitable, especially as M. Blum’s labour programme must enormously raise French costs.