Murder by Mistake

Whenever Bernard Cabanes, 41, editor in chief of Agence France Presse, would run into Bernard Cabanes, 51, editor of the lowbrow morning daily, Le Parisien Libere (circ. 800,000), the two identically named journalists would trade mistaken-identity stories--like the time in 1963 when police in Algeria arrested one of them for criticizing the government in print, when they really wanted the other. Last week the Bernard Cabanes who headed the news agency was buried. He was the victim of French journalism's bloodiest labor dispute in decades--and, once again, of mistaken identity.

Giant Rolls. The A.F.P. editor died of stomach and leg injuries suffered when a bomb exploded just after 1 a.m. in the doorway of his suburban Paris apartment--a bomb that French police are certain was intended for the other Bernard Cabanes. Minutes after the explosion, an anonymous caller told a local radio station, "We have just blasted the home of Cabanes of Le Parisien Libere." The newspaper, largest morning daily in France, has been wracked since March by periodic strikes of a heavily Communist printers' union, the Federation du Livre. The strikes were inspired by layoffs ordered by the proprietor, Emilien Amaury (who also owns the lucrative sport newspaper L 'Equipe). Because Le Parisien Libere, like most French papers, was having financial problems, Amaury announced early this year that he would cut the payroll by some 300 employees, including 200 printers. After a series of walkouts, the printers finally took over two Le Parisien Libere plants on May 6 and barricaded themselves behind giant rolls of newsprint. They have been there ever since.

The paper did not appear for two weeks, until Amaury had a pirate edition printed in Belgium. Union officials got wind of the action, seized two Paris-bound truckloads of the bootlegged papers, and scattered them across Flanders fields. Yet about half the normal press run made it through, and since then the daily has been published more or less regularly in a plant north of Paris with the aid of some Le Parisien Libere printers who belong to the socialist Force Ouvriere, a union that does not recognize the strike. That labor organization's head, Andre Bergeron, escaped injury when a bomb exploded on his doorstep just a few minutes after the one that killed Cabanes. All together, government officials estimate, there have been some 150 acts of violence associated with the strike.

As Bernard Cabanes was being mourned by his colleagues last week in editorials and signed columns, the striking printers were disclaiming any responsibility for the bombings. Paris police have obtained court permission to remove them from the two printing plants by force, but by week's end the police still had not acted. Meanwhile, the other Bernard Cabanes is under close protection.

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