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    Vol.61/No.41           November 24, 1997 
 
 
25 And 50 Years Ago  
November 24, 1972
BATON ROUGE, Nov. 11 - Having won some of their demands, students are continuing their three-week protest on the predominantly Black campuses of Southern University in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

[Governor Edwin] Edwards gave the students until 1 p.m. Nov. 9 to clear out of the building. He gave the police orders to use any means necessary to retake the building. However, the deadline came and passed with the students still inside. Then, an hour and a half later, the students proudly marched out of the building they had held for 10 days. They held a news conference in front of 1,500 onlookers and an array of battle-armed state police, and announced that Dean Bashful had agreed to resign and that their other demands had been met.

The demands won included bus service from the main campus street, emergency medical care on campus, revamping the freshman orientation program, and the right of students to audit the school's financial records. A major demand that the students won was academic amnesty. This means that the striking students cannot be suspended from school for participating in the building take-over.

November 24, 1947
In face of the mounting wave of strikes in France, Premier Paul Ramadier handed in his resignation Nov. 19. This action constitutes recognition of the inability of his regime to do anything about the unbearable rise in the cost of living which is forcing the French workers into action.

The current wave of strikes which forced Ramadier's resignation began in Marseilles when the Stalinist- controlled unions there staged a protest demonstration over an increase in street car fares decreed by the new de Gaullist mayor.

Demonstrations broke out all over France. In the Lille mine basin 30,000 coal miners downed tools Nov. 17.

Strike action spread from pit to pit with such rapidity that within a few days 105,000 out of a total of 114,000 miners in this region were out. The auto workers at Renault Hotchkiss, Simca, Citroen, Ford and Gnome-Rhone walked out. The secretary of the Metal Workers Union in the Paris region called for "total strike." The flour millers of Lille and Marseilles joined 4,500 Paris millers on strike, and 12,000 Paris school teachers voted for strike action to begin Nov. 21. The total number of workers on strike in France on Nov. 19 was estimated at 400,000.  
 
 
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