RIOTING IN PARIS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 277, 23 November 1936, Page 12

RIOTING IN PARIS

20,000 Police OUT ' CLASH OE FASCISTS AND “REDS” ' 1300 Arrests; Many Injured PAMS. Oct. 4. Rioting, in which 1300 persons were detained by the police, broke out in the fashionable Champs Elysees • and other quarters of Paris between ■ Communists and Fascists to-day. A numbers of persons, including police- : men, were injured. ! Further clashes occurred in the Pare des Princes, the “Wembley” of 1 Paris, when 15,000 supporters of [ Colonel de la Rocque’s "French Social ' Party" (formerly the Croix de Feu > 1 demonstrated against the holding ol a giant meeting of 15,000 Communists The Government had forbidden the “French Social Party" to hold a simi- ' lar meeting when it was learned that ' Communists would stage a counterdemonstration. . 20,000 Police On Duty. > i In the Avenue de Versailles win- - dows and taxis were smashed an i ’ overturned as the police and steel- ’ helmeted gardes njooiles charged and i dispersed a column of 2000 member ► of the French Social Party, headei by the French Deputy, M. Henr? ■ Kerilis. The French Government had mobilised 20,000 police and gardes mobile, to keep order in the streets, and the Parc des Princes was an armor 1 . camp. 1 I Overhead zoomed an aeroplane. ‘ I watching the crowds assembling. I In another quarter ten gendarmes , were injured by stories, and in the ’ j Boulevard Exelmans, in the suburb of j Auteuil, the “Kensington" of Paris, demonstrators entered a cafe to deI fend themselves against advancing ' police. Devaluation Denounced. , I Windows were smashed and syphons - and chairs hurled in all directions. | The Spanish Republican Hag, and ,1 red Hags with the Tricolour in the I corner, were to be seen everywhere : at entrances to the Parc des Princes. M. Thorez, secretary-general of the i Communist Party, and M. Jacques Dildos, assistant-secretary, both attacked devaluation in fiery speeches to a crowd of 30,000 to 35,000 who had ' obtained tickets to lhe stadium. ' Cries and counter-cries from the ; Left and Right groups were interi mingled as the police began to dis- ; perse the demonstrators, many of j whom received broken heads.--Reuter.