Students felt that this law was designed to discourage students from starting or continuing lycée and university studies. This is the government's only answer to the growing inability of university graduates to find work in their fields. Students also feel the law would be used to intimidate political activists. The Debré Law is the primary target of the student strikes that have erupted across the country in the past two weeks.
The minister of education issued a statement last night admitting that the absentee rate nationally was at 75 percent in the secondary schools. Yesterday's demonstration was illegal, giving the police a pretext for attacking and arresting demonstrators. Ever since the 1968 general strike - which was sparked by a student struggle - almost all demonstrations have been refused a permit.
Despite the ban, estimates of the size of the demonstration ranged from 30,000 to 100,000. It is difficult to estimate the size because of police attempts to disperse the demonstrators. Decisions on the assembly points and other logistics were made at student general assemblies, consisting of representatives of "struggle committees" in more than 100 Paris schools.
April 5, 1948
SOUTH ST. PAUL, Minn., March 31 - With picket lines solid,
members of the CIO Packinghouse Workers have successfully
blocked every attempt of company officials in the South St.
Paul area to break the 2-week-old meat packing strike. The
union, representing workers at Armour, Swift, and Cudahy have
turned a series of company maneuvers into an attack on the
anti-union program of the big meat packers. A motor brigade
of office employees was turned back at the Armour plant
yesterday when 200 pickets held their ground.
Although pickets were ordered to move off railroad property a picket sign extended by a cane fishing pole over the railroad tracks was being honored by engine crew on a strike bound switch engine in the Amour yard.
Engine crews have been reporting for each shift, sitting in the car, and leaving at the end of their eight hours. The engine has been tied up since the first day of the strike, when company officials attempted to haul some cars of meat from the plant.
In a series of daily radio broadcasts over station WMIN, entitled "On the Picket Line," CIO representatives are presenting the union's program in the strike. Milton Siegel, UPWA Field Representative in District 2, pointed out that it is the packinghouse workers who, under dangerous and unhealthy conditions, supply the nation with meat.