FRENCH STRIKES

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1936, Page 9

FRENCH STRIKES

THE WORST OVER

WORKERS RESVMLVO

SOME STILL STANDING OUT

I I'niM I'rt-ss A<sn<:latlon--l!.v Bltctric Ti 10l l graph—Copyright. I J'ARtS, June i:i The .--Irikf' Mtuation Jias greatly improved, and .strikers are everywhere returning to work. With the metal workers' dispute settled, it is generally hoped that the back of the strike is broken. The employees at the Citroen and Renault works have formally evacuated the factories. The Renault employees, dressed in carnival costumes, held a procession of flower-laden taxi-cabs to celebrate their victory. Similar demonstrations took place in many suburbs. Work generally will be resumed on Monday, although builders and painters, Parisian store assistants, insurance clerks, and river and canal boatmen are still standing out. Paris dockers came out, joining the boatmen. Twelve hundred employees of the Nieuport aeroplane works have begun to stay in. The stoppage movement has spread to Morocco, where native sugar refiners and metal workers have struck. PARIS~SCENES ORDERLY PARADES I COMMUNIST VICTORY FESTIVAL (Received June 15, 12.30 p.m.) 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 tomorrow marchcd in orderly files from their workshops in bodies. The men afterwards returned to many of the factories and spent some hours removing revolutionary mural [ drawings and notices. ' I

The "Manchester Guardian's" Paris correspondent says that while racegoers representing half of Paris went (o 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 a hundred.thousand, stood in the sunny arena, which is 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 Barbousse 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.

DEVALUATION OF FRANC

ULTIMATELY INEVITABLE OPINION IN LONDON (Received June 15, 10 a.m.) 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.