1.
SV Signpost "Trebes" PAN TO vehicles waiting & smoke
0.07

2.
GV PAN Line of vehicles & fire.
0.15

3.
SV Burning tyres
0.18

4.
SV Fire PAN TO car ablaze under railway bridge
0.25

5.
SV Burning car.
0.30

6.
LV Fire on railway tracks
0.35

7.
GV Fires next to bridge
0.40

8.
GV Demonstrators watching train stopping.
0.47

9.
SV Demonstrators on tracks and around train
0.53

10.
SV & CU Imported wine pouring from wagon
1.03

11.
CU Wine running away TILT TO wagon emptying.
1.11



Initials CM/PMW/BB/0130 CM/PMW/BB/0155



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Thousands of wine-growers in the departments of Gard, Aude and Herault in the French Midi demonstrated on Thursday (21 Jan.) against Government policy towards their industry.

The growers, many of them from small family concerns, say they are hard-hit by taxes, depressed prices, and foreign imports of wine.

Some of the most violent demonstrations took place at Trebes, near Carcassone. Angry growers held up a train on the Narbonne-Carcassone railway line with blazing obstructions, and poured away imported wine in its wagons.

Higher costs and lower prices to growers have had a number of causes during 1971, but the beginning of a wine common market has caused special difficulty for French producers. The Common Market has allowed Italy to export to France since June 1970 1.5 million hectolitres of wine, while France has exported to Italy only 200,000 hectolitres.

Organisations representing the growers have called for controls on the entry of foreign wine into France, lower taxes on wine, and a guaranteed sale for wine stocked by contract with the Government.