PARIS SCENES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 141, 16 June 1936, Page 7

PARIS SCENES

ORDERLY PARADES COMMUNIST VICTORY FESTIVAL .By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright] LONDON, June 14. The Daily Mail’s Paris correspondent says that, marking the termination of the majority of the strikes, hundreds of thousands of employees who are resuming work to-morrow, marched in orderly files from their workshops in bodies. The men afterwards returned to many factories and spent some hours removing revolutionary mural drawings and notices. The Manchester Guardia’s Paris correspondent says that while racegoers representing half of Paris went to Chantilly to see the French Derby, the other half spent the afternoon at a victory festival organised by the Communist Party at the Velodrome Buffalo, a vast open-air stadium in the workingclass suburb of Montrouge. Everything was well organise#, flags and banners being used on a colossal scale. A hundred thousand people crowded the grandstands, while a hundred thousand stood in the sunny arena, which is bisected by a raised gangway leading to the speakers’ forum. Tricolours alternated with red flags, and banners inscribed “Free, strong, happy France’’ floated at each end of the stadium. Everyone wore red emblems. A huge picture of the late Henri Barbousse adorned the speakers’ platform. A band played revolutionary tunes, while squads of victorious strikers bearing banners displayed hammer and sickle badges paraded the gangway. As the crowds cheered for the Soviets suddenly four great flags were broken from flagpoles in the middle of the arena. These were examples of a newly-devised national flag of Soviet France, namely, a red field quartered with the tricolour, the Communist hammer and sickle appearing between the golden letters R.F. on the fly. Here was a strange vision of the new France in the making. The names of 22 victims of Fascism who have been killed in street fights in the past .two years were read out and a drum tapped a requiem after each name, the band finally playing a Russian funeral march. Speakers delivered addresses triumphantly recording the result of the strikes and prophesying a more prosperous future for the workers.

- DEVALUATION OF FRANC ULTIMATELY INEVITABLE OPINION ;N LONDON LONDON, June J 4. Despite 31. Blum’s declaration that he does not intend to devalue the franc yet, the franc is still the subject of recurring selling pressure. The City is adhering to the view that, whiie devaluation may be temporarily staved off, ultimately it is inevitable, especially as 31. Blum’s labour programme must enormously raise French costs. POLITICAL STRIFE SHOOTINGS IN SPAIN Received June 15, 1120 p.m. 3IADBLD, June J 5. Three persons are known to be dead and two seriously injured as a result of disturbances in Spain on Sunday, as well as extensive damage to a railway crossing at Langreo Oviedo oy a bomb. The Civil Guard at Carzci, near Jacn, reported one killed and many injured in a clash between Fascists and Alarxists. One was killed and many injured In fighting between Santander Fascists and Communists. Miguel Alcazar, director of the magazine Espana, and a member of the Right liaditionalist Party, was shot and gravely wounded when entering his house. It is reported that at Carrascosa a guard shot and killed a Socialist youth after a heated discussion.