CLASH SN PARIS

Northern Advocate, 1 December 1947, Page 5

CLASH SN PARIS

Further clashes between police and strikers are reported in various parts of Paris.

Police, after a violent struggle lasting 90 minutes, repulsed over 100 strikers who forced entry into the Montmatre telephone exchange. Police also intervened when railway saboteurs attempted to place detonators on railway lines.

Police forcibly ejected from two factories strikers who resisted with bricks and fire-brands. They made eight arrests.

Police today seized editions of four Communist papers. One was the Marseilles paper Rouge Midi, which carried a headline: “They Want to Assassinate the Republic.” Two other papers were in Toulouse and one in Bordeaux.

The Associated Press says the police have occupied the offices of two Communist newspapers, L'Humanite

and Ce Soil - , and have expelled the employees. They confiscated copies of both papers. Ce Soir had a 2-inch headline proclaiming “the Republic is in Danger.” M. Schuman’s anti-strike bill, it said, was a reactionary coup d’etat. A special edition of L’Humanite in similar vein said, “The American party is tearing up the Constitution.” The Government has suspended newsprint supplies to L’Humanite. The authorities have also suppressed a twice-weekly broadcast by a French organisation called Friends of the Soviet Union.

Troops reinforcements and light tanks continued to arrive throughout the day in Marseilles. Storemen, handling flour in Marseilles to guarantee essential food supplies, failed to respond to a local civilian mobilisation order and were arrested.

Most of them immediately decided” to return to work and the police released them.

Police in Paris arrested 52 people at the Gare de Lyon.