RIOT IN PARIS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22464, 7 July 1936, Page 9

RIOT IN PARIS

THE FIERY CROSS

MASS DEMONSTRATION

CLASH WITH POLICE

WILD SCENES OCCUR

WOMEN IN THE MOB By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Received July 6, 0.5 p.m.) PARIS, July O Wild scenes were witnessed in the Champs Elysees last evening. Ten thousand demonstrators, most of whom were members of the dissolved Croix de Feu (Fiery Cross) organisation, including young women wearing the national colours, clashed with strong detachments of gendarmes and Mobile Guards. The brawl lasted an hour and a-hiilf and 31 police and 60 civilians were injured. Fifty people were arrested.

The riot followed the ceremonial revival of the Flame of Remembrance at the Unknown Soldier's Tomb, Arc do Trioniphe, by the National Union of Ex-Combatants.

Tables, chairs and syphons were snatched from cafes and used as weapons. The demonstrators formed up in the Champs Elvsees and easily swept aside the first barrage of the police, who were reinforced by 40 platoons of Mobile Guards. When tho police and guards strove to disperse the rioters free fights raged round the Arc de Triomphe. Hundreds of people sitting on cafe terraces were swept into the melee. The police were forced to charge women and children in addition to men in order to break up the crowd. The leader of tho Croix do Feu, Colonel de la Rocque, declared: "The spirit of the Croix de Feu directs our efforts. We have formed a party which is above all other parties."