FRENCH LABOUR

Taranaki Daily News, 5 August 1937, Page 5

FRENCH LABOUR

SIX MONTHS' RESPITE GRANTED. SUCCESSFUL SECRET APPEALS. London, May 9. A six months' truce in the increasing labour troubles in France in_ order to seciire the success of the Paris Exhibition is promised as the result of secret appeals made to the employers and tlre men by the Prime Minister, M. Blum. It is announced that both sides have agreed to the principle of postponement until November of the renewal of the collective agreement made in a number of industries when the Popular Front Government was formed last year. The renewal was to have taken place at ihe beginning of June, and it was expected that. the workers would take the opportunity of submitting demands which would be almost impossible to meet, and which might have led to strikes and much labour, trouble. The truce means that the threatened . lock-outs and strikes in hotels and restaurants over a wide area of France will not take place. A general strike had been threatened for May 24, the I day of the official opening of the exhibition.

The truce is regarded as a personal triumph for M. Blum. E?oubt is expressed whether the Communists will abide by it. It is expected that when the Chamber of Deputies meets to-day it will ,he shown that, a similar truce has been reached between three parties of the Popular Front Government— the Communists, Socialists and Radicals, among whom there is growing dissension.