DISORDERS IN FRANCE

Wairarapa Age, 10 August 1935, Page 3

DISORDERS IN FRANCE

MARITIME STRIKE SETTLED AT LE HAVRE. SERIOUS RIOTING AT TOULON & CHERBOURG. BREST WORKERS TO RESUME. PARIS, August 8. The shipping strike at Le Havre ended following a meeting in Paris between a delegation of seamen and M. Bertrand, Minister of Merchant Marine, who assured the seamen that their grievances would be sympathetically considered and urged them, in their own country’s interests, to return to work. The news that the liner Champlain would sail in the evening was received joyously by the passengers, who had been living picnic fashion partly on board the ship and partly in restaurants. The crew returned to the ship amid cheers. The Champlain will call at Southampton in the morning to pick up 250 passengers who left London at midnight, having mostly spent the day sight-seeing. The Lafayette and other liners will leave on the due date.

Three thousand employees at the munition works at Toulon, who downed tools this afternoon and paraded through the town, were dispersed after an encounter with mobile guards. A similar incident occurred at Cherbourg naval arsenal. During -the afternoon the police made repeated charges in Toulon during which revolvers were fired and many heads were broken. Sixty arrests were made.

The rioting was resumed in the evening unexpectedly, as most of the workers, obeying the orders of their leaders, are remaining indoors, but 200 extremists marched through the streets singing * * The Internationale.” Guards cleared the street, but the strikers took refuge in neighbouring houses *and began to snipe at the police and the guards, who thereupon opened fire. Three persons are reported to have been killed, and over 50 wounded, including an inspector of police. Instead of subsiding, the wave of violence and strikes against the cuts threatens to spread. Communist agitators are working desperately to exploit the situation. The town is in darkness as nearly all the street lamps have been smashed.

Between 20,000 and 25,000' people, each wearing a red flower, participated in the funeral at Brest of Joseph Baraer, a workman who was killed in the riots. Workers, with the concurrence of the police, undertook the maintenance of order themselves, and the police arranged for the military to be withdrawn from the town.

The men have decided to resume work at the arsenal and the dockyard in th© morning.