1.
LA Sign on building " Le Figaro"
0.03

2.
MV & CU People reading paper display and also blank spaces where newspapers are missing (2 shots)
0.11

3.
CU Empty desks??? and idle printing machines (3 shots)
0.27

4.
TV & MV Demonstrators down street with placards (6 shots)
1.10



Initials CL/1810



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Printers of French newspapers staged their sixth strike since April on Wednesday (20 August), once again leaving the country almost without newspapers for the following day.

Despite renewed warnings from newspaper owners that a financial crisis is resulting from the stoppages, thousands of printers took to the streets to protest over threatened job losses in the newspaper industry.

A key to the dispute is at the "Parisien Libero", where striking printers have been occupying the main printing plant for several months; protesting at an economy drive to cut out several hundred jobs. But the " Parisien Libere" was once again, ironically, the only newspaper in Paris to Publish for 21 st August, printed by members of another union working in the Paris suburbs.

A statement issued by the Newspaper Owners' Association denounced " these repeated strikes which are causing considerable damage to newspapers that have no quarrel with their staff".