CLASH WITH MOBILE GUARD

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 25 November 1938, Page 6

CLASH WITH MOBILE GUARD

METAL INDUSTRIES AT STANDSTILL PARIS, 24th November. Strikers throughout France now number 80,000. Resistance to the decrees is steadily stiffening, despite the employers’ protests to M. Daladier. Twentyfive thousand miners in the Valenciennes district have been called out in order to demonstrate their solidarity with the metalworkers. Eight thQUsand miners held up 2000 Mobile Guards en route to evacuate men from the surface works at Denain. The strikers seized a coal train, drove it to a level crossing, dumped 20 trucks-full of coal on the railway line, and fortified the mount with boards and beams. Two hundred armed with spades, bars and sticks surmounted it and defied the guards* while thousands of others, reinforced by crowds of inhabitants of Denain, massed behind them. The sub-prefect, failing to persuade the strikers to withdraw, ordered the guards to charge and a pitched battle ensued. The guards defeated the strikers, who counter-attacked and threatened to overturn a lorryful of guards, who dismounted and fought their way through the strikers -.vith their riflebutts. The strikers seized press cameras in order to prevent the employment of photographs as evidence against them. Baffled, the authorities summoned reinforcements from Lille and eventually an agreement was reached whereby the guards retired amid jeers and the strikers removed the barrier. Mining and metal industries in Northern France are at a standstill.