Disturbances In France— Ugly Clashes Between Police And Communists

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 October 1948, Page 5

Disturbances In France— Ugly Clashes Between Police And Communists

(Reed 10.15 a.m.) „ PA ? IS < Oc ‘ ober One striker was killed and 48 strikers and 28 Republican Guards injured during a clash between coal-miners and the police at Merlebach, in Lorraine, says the British United Press correspondent. The disturbances started last night when Communist strikers tried to prevent non-Communist miners from entering the pits. , Five hundred strikers hurled paving stones at the security guards lorries. Fighting took place intermittently throughout the night and during the morning.

• The strikers, during the afternoon, again attacked the security guards They overturned police lorries and tried to set them on fire.

Security guards charged and in the ensuing fight one striker, who was a Jugoslav, was killed. The spokesmen of the Communistled Metal Workers’ Union claimed that the strikers forced the security squads and. troops to abandon the attempt to occupy the Micheville steel works. They said the workers disarmed the security forces who attacked with . tear-gas bombs, truncheons and rifle butts. The security forces then left in trucks. The troops ordered to start the coke ovens took no part in the affair and went back to their barracks. The Associated Press correspondent says the textile workers in Troyes are reported to be on strike. There are also scattered railway strikes throughout the country. The striking coke-oven workers in Douai said they would refuse to obey the Government “requisition orders” to return to work.

Earlier, it was reported that the French Government decided to draft a labour force to keep coke ovens operating in the strike-bound coalmining area in the north of France. If the ovens are allowed to die completely many industries in the north will be forced to shut down for months.

The Paris correspondent of the Bri-

tish United Press says that 500,000 workers are now estimated to be on strike. The coalfields are silent. Railwaymen are out in the north and north-east and there is a 24-hour strike of merchant seamen#

“Communist Offensive”

“We may be sure that Communist propaganda attacks will probe for every weakness and prey on every sphere,” said Mr R. A. Eden, in a public speech in Britain. “The strikes now being tormented in France are part of that offensive.” Mr Eden said it was to be expected that concentrated attacks of, Communist propaganda would be made on the new-found resolution and solidarity of the West, and in particular on the steps to co-ordinate defence. “The pace of events to-day does not permit any delays in pressing forward with courage and imagination to create the widest possible area of said. “Unity is now our best hope of forestalling future conflicts —unity within the British Empire, unity with Western Europe, unity across the Atlantic. The deepest ambition of each of us is to preserve peace.”