Sixteenth Day Of Mine Hold-up— French Strike Takes More Serious Turn

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 October 1948, Page 7

Sixteenth Day Of Mine Hold-up— French Strike Takes More Serious Turn

(Rec.To.lo a.m.) PARIS, October 19. The French coal strike, now in its sixteenth day, has taken a more serious turn. Many towns in the north are completely without electricity and in some'the water supplies have also been cut off. Towns in the Lens area are suffering drastic gas cuts because the coke ovens have ceased to function. There was a serious clash near St Etienne this afternoon. Twenty Republican Security Guards and 20 strikers were injured when Government forces attacked a strike-bound coal pit near the town.

A later message says that soldiers and police by this evening had seized dozens of strike-bound coalfields. Resistance was generally slight, but when it was stubborn tear-gas .was The strikers in a cne-hour battle hurled stones and lumps of iron . at the police and soldiers, who replied with the use of rifle butts. Six large army lorries crammed with soldiers and police, armed with rifles and tommy-guns, today tore out of St Etienne, preceded by radioequipped jeeps and ambulances, to occupy the Roche le Moliere pithead near St Etienne. Reuter’s correspondent reported that St Etienne is virtually in a stage of seige. It is estimated that nearly 10,000 troops and police are in the area, making continuous patrols. The strikers’ headquarters declar-

ed that the miners intended to defend their pickets “with all their might.” Women Communist supporters before the arrival of the troops today joined the pickets at the pitheads. The strikers still occupy nine or 10 pits.