POLICE DEFIED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19865, 13 June 1927, Page 7

POLICE DEFIED

FRENCH ROYALIST, RESISTING ARREST, DEFENDS OFFICE AGAINST POLICE AMAZING SCENES ARE SEQUEL TO FAMOUS PARIS TAXICAB MYSTERY BARBED WIRE AND SANDBAGS [By Telegraph—Per Press Assn.—Copyright.] Received June 12, 7 p.m. (A.&N.Z.) PARIS, June 12. There were amazing scenes yesterday at the offices of the Royalist Leon Daudet’s newspaper Action Francaise. Daudet was due to surrender to undergo imprisonment for libelling the driver of a taxicab in which his son was found shot. He refused to go and said: “If the police want me, they must fetch me.” . Hundreds of Royalists were sworn in to prevent his arrest. They surrounded the six-storey building and began constructing barbed wire and sandbag defences, while others, their pockets bulging with revolvers, carried mysterious boxes supposed to contain machine-guns, into the premises. “I am fighting for the honour of my son,” said Daudet, addressing the crowd. “There are thousands of resolute men at my back prepared to face death.” Daudet issued a bulletin this morning that he “passed a good night and is now taking cafo au lait. ” His partisans caused a riot last evening. The Royalists’ ironical cheering of their opponents led to a free fight with sticks and bludgeons; : then police reinforcements arrived in lorries and dispersed the rioters, 20 vj of whom were arrested. I]