French Forces Fight Strikers to Secure Mines in S. France

Grey River Argus, 28 October 1948, Page 7

French Forces Fight Strikers to Secure Mines in S. France

PARIS, October 26. On Tuesday there was a pitched gun battle between striking miners and police near Alais, in Southern France, lasting several hours. A miner was killed, and two police were seriously wounded. The death of the striker brought the death-roll to three as the strike enters the fourth week. The fight began when troops and police forced their way past a roadblock on the way to remove strike pickets. A Government statement says the strikers fired first and hurled grenades. A small land-mine exploded as the police approached the mine, wounding several policemen. The police took prisoner about 350 strikers, most of them armed. They included many foreigners. Despite the battle near the roadblock, the police and troops pressed forward and forced the pickets from the mines. Troops are now patrolling the whole area. It is reported that the troops and police used tanks to penetrate the strikers’ barricade. One tank fired a 25-millimetre gun to force a breach and plunged in through a ram of bricks and iron bolts which the strikers threw. During clashes outside Alais, workers in the city tried to seize gendarmes at the barracks and post office. Sub-prefecture troops restored order. A spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior said the police are now looking for a “number of foreigners”. Troops have seized all four pits in , the Roche Belle group, north ot There was shooting at the Belle pits before the troops took them. At de Cazeville, . near Toulouse, the police occupied the pitheads when pickets tned to bio safety men from entering the mines. In ' Marseilles, when. 1 iff,mithp tank action at Alais, docker o jrn~ mediately stopped work, an open space near the docks, and stopped trolley-bus services.

Dockers at Rouen Support Miners

(Rec 11.27) PARIS, Oct. 27 Dockers at Rouen, an inland port, which serves Paris, decided to.support the striking miners by stopping work on the unloading of a dozen colliers. Work by the dockers on the other cargoes is proceeding normally.

Aid For Strikers From East Europe

(Rec. 10.50). LONDON, October 27. Reuter’s correspondent at Prague reports: The Czechoslovak News Agency says that Skoda Works employees decided to send ten thousand sterling to striking French miners.

Communist Leaders Want Wider Strike

(Rec. 11.40) PARIS, Oct. 17 The Communist-led General Confederation of Labour, which apparently is now trying to enlist the support of other French industries for the miners’ strike has called on all of the workers in Gard Department, of Southern France, to walk out in a twenty-four hour general strike to? m< Meanwhile the police have arrested four hundred of the strikers in the Alais area in the last twenty-four hours Police in the Valenciennes sector began to clear the Bligniere pit of the strikers, and established patrols at a nearby central electric plant.