The World - News from Oct. 25, 1987

Striking longshoremen and youths fought with Tahitian police and set fire to buildings, leaving eight people injured, French news reports said. Fifty strikers were reported arrested. French Overseas Territories Minister Bernard Pons said he is sending South Pacific State Secretary Gaston Flosse to Papeete, capital of Tahiti and of the French Polynesian chain of islands, to report back on events. French television, which showed scenes of blazing stores and indigenous Polynesians hurling stones and Molotov cocktails, said the unrest began in Papeete’s port district and spread downtown, where 500 strikers joined by young islanders set fire to several stores and cars.