Mounting Wave Of Strikes— Communist Challenge To Frech Government

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 October 1948, Page 5

Mounting Wave Of Strikes— Communist Challenge To Frech Government

(Recd. 11.40 a.m.) PARIS, October 7. In the face of a mounting wave of strikes, the French Government is taking precautions against civil unrest. The Cabinet at a special meeting tonight prepared measures to use troop-protected labour, if necessary, to maintain the 13 vital coke ovens on which gas supplies in the northern coalfields-depend.

In the coalfield reinforced strike pickets’ are barricading themselves behind locked pit gales. The arrival of troops in full battle kit is reported from some mining areas.

Reuter's correspondent says the coal-mining dispute has devel-, oped into a battle between the Government and the Communists.

The Communist leader, Auguste le Coeur, in a speech to the miners, said: “The Government pretends that it cannot raise wages, but allots 40,000,000.000 francs to the military budget. The workers will never be President Truman’s infantrymen. By our strike we rise against that shameful policy.” Striking railwaymen occupied the station at Chalons-sur-Marne, halfway between Paris and Strasbourg, causing the main line traffic to be diverted or slowed up. “The French coal strike cuts at the root of French recovery and is the gravest challenge the moderate parties have yet had to face,” says The Times in a leading article. “Its prolongation would wipe out much of France’s Marshall aid benefits, and in this dilemma General de Gaulle sees his chance of assuming power drawing nearer. “To get far towards granting what the unions now want would in the present circumstances do little more than provoke another spurt of inflation.

“Events such as this week’s mining strike are certain to present the moderate parties with a stern test during the next few months. It is here that the real danger lies. The French public lately has shown many signs of weariness with the deepening confusion of policy and administration in much of its every-day life. The

moderate parties, no matter how sincere their intentions, are less popular than before. What makes the division in French life more perilous for the stability of Europe is the likelihood that once restraint is removed and a political clash is unavoidable the de Gaullists would be seen as champions of the West and the Communists as supporters of the pretensions of the East.

“The immediate drama lies in the Government’s determination to postpone the municipal elections. General de Gaulle, seeing his star in the ascendancy, wants a general election as soon as possible. The Communists persuaded perhaps that they cannot in the end avoid it, appear to be not averse to an early trial of 'strength."