CLASHES & ARRESTS.

Wairarapa Age, 6 October 1936, Page 5

CLASHES & ARRESTS.

BIG MUSTER OF POLICE IN PARIS. COMMUNIST MEETING PROTECTED. MEMBERS OF SOCIAL PARTY REPELLED. PARIS, October 4. Armed police and mounted Republican Guards numbering 20,000 who established an impregnable barrier around the Parc des Princes, repelled over 15,000 members of the Social Party advancing to invade the park and surrounding streets to prevent a Communist meeting. Many clashes resulted in 1300 arrests being made. The chief of the disturbances was in the neighbourhood of the Parc des Princes, where 3000 Communists established themselves in the early morning to prevent the seizure of the stadium by the Social Party. Police barricaded the area, and army reconnaissance aeroplanes -watched the crowds assembling, and by the use of wireless directed the police to danger points, where a dozen columns of the Social Party were advancing, necessitating numerous changes. The Social Pfirty smashed windows and overturned taxis. Eight of the police and 200 demonstrators were injured. The police in the afternoon sufficiently dispersed the demonstrators to enable 40,000 Communists to assemble. The Communist meeting passed a resolution demanding that, in view of alleged Italian and German help to the insurgents, the ban on arms to Spain should be raised. (The Social Party was formed by Colonel de la Rocque following on the enforced disbandment of his Fascist organisation the Croix de Feu.).