FRENCH police prevented miners' union leaders plastering a banner outside Prime Minister Tony Blair's seafront hotel in Nice.

National Union of Mineworkers' general Lancashire area secretary Billy Kelly, who lives in the Bolton area and is based at the branch office in Leigh, was one of half a dozen locals at the European TUC rally demonstrating against moves to expand the European Union.

"We're not against our Eastern European neighbours but we feel there is a danger the EU could grow in to a super power and result in a reduction in democracy which we are against.

"Superpower results in arguments and war and we represent those who suffer most as the fodder in any conflicts."

Four of the Lancashire NUM representatives took part in the Nice demonstration proudly bearing the colourful banner of the

Bold Colliery (St Helens) branch.

They tried to pin a "Justice for Mineworkers" banner to the front of the plush West End hotel where the Prime Minister was staying but gendarmes moved in.

"They told us we could demonstrate after Mr Blair had left," said Mr Kelly.

He stressed the NUM intended a peaceful protest highlighting the lengthy delays ex-miners faced after staking compensation claims for industrial illness.

Compensation claims put in by thousands of ex-miners have dragged slowly through the system.

Solicitors acting for hundreds of claimants have even sent out letters offering a will writing service because of concerns from some of their clients that they would die before their compensation was paid!

Union leaders are furious about what they see as unnecessary delays in processing claims.

Mr Kelly said ageing colliers, who must have completed over 20 years underground to make a claim, had to complete a 40 page questionnaires so complicated that legal advisors had to be brought in to assist.

"Very few claims have been processed and some claimants chose to go for a 'fast track clearance' and accept low compensation because they feared if they didn't accept they might not be alive when the settlement finally came through.

"But most have received letters from British Coal, or the DTI if you like, asking them to fill in yet another form to speed-up their claim! It is ludicrous. This delay is intolerable."

He claimed some ex-miners had not claimed because they did not wish to go through more rigorous medical examinations.

"Why should they have to go for another medical?," he asked.

"They have already undergone Department of Social Security assessment -- why can't the two government department's simply co-operate?"

The Coalfield Communities Campaign says frustration and anger is building among former miners angered by the slow progress of settlement claims and the medical examinations they have to endure.

Many says they are having difficulty proving their length of service because work records have been destroyed or lost and claimants are having to find witnesses to prove they worked in the pits.