France is becoming an armed camp.

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  • john welsford
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2002
    • 7750

    #16
    Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

    I'll be in France, and Spain soon, my contacts in both countries haven't mentioned anything other than more police at airports and public transport centres, they're not feeling pressured or threatened at all. Same in Germany.
    Incidentally I've not long come home from Chile, highly socialistic country, one where a few decades ago the police were to be feared. This trip and on my previous one last year, the Carbineri were approachable, unfailingly helpful, friendly and polite. As they should be, quite a change.


    John Welsford
    An expert is but a beginner with experience.

    Comment

    • Peerie Maa
      Old Grey Inquisitive One
      • Oct 2008
      • 62419

      #17
      Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

      Originally posted by Jimmy W
      Geng will fixate on anything that he thinks will justify the actions of his hero the Cheeto Jesus.
      Geng and his wife were bricking it on a trip to Cardiff London and Paris before Trump was an issue.

      Originally posted by genglandoh
      The purpose of the trip was to spread my fathers ashes over the Bristol Channel.
      Our family comes from a long line of Sea Captains and Harbor Pilots based in the Bristol Channel.
      My father was in the British Merchant Navy during WWII and died last year at 89.

      We spread his ashes at Sully Island with the 16 family members from North America.
      The next day we had a family reunion at a restaurant with the 16 from NA and 15 from all around the UK.

      My Wife and I spent the first week in Cardiff with everyone.
      Then we took the train from Cardiff to Paris changing in London.
      We spent 4 days in Paris and returned to London for 3 days before flying back to the US.

      The trip was great but I was a little uneasy about all the trouble in France, Germany and London.
      I did my best to keep my wife calm and just enjoy the trip.
      It really is quite difficult to build an ugly wooden boat.

      The power of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web
      The weakness of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web.

      Comment

      • C. Ross
        Senior Member
        • May 2007
        • 14153

        #18
        Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

        Originally posted by delecta
        Why do some here call you a republican? You're anything but. I have concerns when my children board the bus in the morning, how can you not?

        Have a lovely trip and all of your family a safe return.
        Thank you for your well wishes.

        If I follow your logic, I can't possibly be a Republican because I'm not sufficiently scared? That's quite sad, actually.

        Of course I worry about my kids. Every day. And do I want our country to be safe? Indeed. But I don't worry about my daughter in Paris more than my daughter in Seattle. And my reasons for concern are nearly inverted compared to those highlighted by our President. They are much more likely to be struck by lightning or win the Powerball than they are to be injured or killed by a terrorist or an illegal alien, and they are more likely by far to be victims of sexual violence than anything else.

        The needless billions we'll spend on foolish scared security are more debt for them to repay, and I will refrain from commenting on our President's coarsening of our culture and role modeling vis-a-vis women. (But where is the First Lady's intended initiative on cyberbullying? Wouldn't that be quite welcome!)

        My daughters speak five languages other than English between them, and they want to see the world. They'll encounter new things, maybe even ways that countries police differently like in France. I'm proud of them, I hope they keep exploring, and I hope they're cautious but never afraid.

        Comment

        • David W Pratt
          Senior Member
          • May 2005
          • 12324

          #19
          Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

          As the picture shows, we have the right to bare arms...

          Comment

          • Keith Wilson
            Trying to be reasonable
            • Oct 1999
            • 64110

            #20
            Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

            Originally posted by john welsford
            Incidentally I've not long come home from Chile, highly socialistic country, one where a few decades ago the police were to be feared. This trip and on my previous one last year, the Carbineri were approachable, unfailingly helpful, friendly and polite. As they should be, quite a change.
            I presume 'highly socialistic' was ironic? One can say many things about Chile, but socialistic (at least in the old style) it has not been since 1973. And FWIW, the carabineros (the national police force) have for a very long time been far more honest and professional than most other Latin Amrican police - although I realize that at times, that wasn't a very high standard. An offer of a modest bribe to get you out of a speeding ticket or some other minor offense, utterly standard procedure in some places, will get you in serious trouble in Chile, although they might cut you a little slack because of being a foreigner. But even during the darkest days of the Pinochet government right after the coup, the carabineros didn't engage in repression and torture with any enthusiasm, and tried to maintain the rule of law. For the nasty stuff, they had to use the military. These days, I'd trust a Chilean carabinero as much as my local St Paul police, which is quite a compliment - although if anything happened, the Chileans would be a lot more bureaucratic and have innumerable forms to fill out on a manual typewriter in triplicate; they love that kind of thing.

            Where were you in Chile, BTW? I've been there quite a few times, have a good friend living in the Elqui Valley near Vicuña.
            "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations,
            for nature cannot be fooled."

            Richard Feynman

            Comment

            • Canoeyawl
              .
              • Jun 2003
              • 37686

              #21
              Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

              Many police here in the US carry full automatic weapons today.

              By 2009, the P90 was in service with military and police forces in over 40 countries.[13] In the United States, Houston Police Department was the first local law enforcement agency to adopt the P90, acquiring it for their SWAT team in 1999.[21] In 2003, the Houston SWAT team became one of the first agencies in the country to use the weapon in a shootout.[21] By 2009, the P90 was in use with over 200 law enforcement agencies in the United States,[14] including the Secret Service and Federal Protective Service.[7][39] In response, the National Rifle Association added the P90 and PS90 to its NRA Tactical Police Competition standards, allowing law enforcement agencies to compete in the event using either weapon.[40]
              wiki

              Comment

              • LeeG
                Senior Member
                • May 2002
                • 72769

                #22
                Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

                Can't be too careful, Americans returning from France might contact the terrorist virus and infect our precious bodily fluids.



                Former Greenville Police Chief Hassan Aden said he was unreasonably detained, after allegedly being forced to sit in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection detention center for an hour and a half, which he detailed in a Facebook post earlier this evening.

                “My freedoms were restricted, and I cannot be sure it won’t happen again, and that it won’t happen to my family, my children, the next time we travel abroad,” Aden said in the post.

                Aden was returning from visiting his mother in Paris, when he arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He said this is something he has done numerous times since becoming a U.S. citizen, but this is the first time he has been detained by CBP.

                “On all of my prior trips, I was greeted by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers with a warm smile and the usual, ‘Welcome home sir’,” he said.

                Aden said the officer who stopped him asked if he was traveling alone and then proceeded to escort him to a back room. He told the officers numerous times of his past experience as a police chief, but they continued to hold him saying someone on the watch list was using his name as an alias.

                According to Aden, there were around 25 other foreign nationals who were also stopped by the CBP. However, they were released after a few minutes, while he stayed detained longer than anyone else.

                “I told him as he avoided eye contact how wrong this scenario was that the only US citizen, career US police officer and chief of police out of the group of detainees was the one with the longest unreasonable detention,” Aden said.

                He went on to include in his post that when he tried to take up his complaints with the CBP, they claimed he was not being detained.

                “I was in a room with no access to my mobile phone to communicate with my wife and family about what was happening, my movements were restricted to a chair, and they had my passport, and he had the audacity to tell me I was not being detained,” Aden said.

                After being released, he has continued to reach out to representatives about his experience and plans to continue reaching out to as many people as necessary.

                “This country now feels cold, unwelcoming, and in the beginning stages of a country that is isolating itself from the rest of the world and its own people in an unprecedented fashion,” Aden said.

                Comment

                • Nicholas Carey
                  Flâneur • Seattle
                  • Feb 2001
                  • 20312

                  #23
                  Originally posted by genglandoh
                  Last year the French Government decided the terror threat was so high that they put 10,000 troops in the streets of France.
                  When I was in Paris last summer we saw troops at every tourist location armed with military automatic weapons.

                  Title: April 15 2016 Thousands of troops on Paris streets but are they France's new Maginot line?
                  Troop presence in France hit 10,000 after Paris attacks. Many welcome them, but others fear it is a ‘political anti-anxiety measure’
                  Link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...s-france-safer

                  I hate to break it to you but this is SOP in la France when the threat level is high.

                  For starters, France has two police forces: the civilian Sûreté nationale (now the Police nationale) and the military Gendarmerie. They both exercise civil authority.

                  Gendarmes are usually armed, in my experience, with submachine guns.

                  And when threat levels escalate, the French ratchet things up. Back in the late 1980s, when terrorism by the Red Brigade and others was at its height, every public trash can in Paris was welded shut and the streets patrolled by heavily armed French Marines. The amount of trash on the street was amazing. Luckily Paris employs a small army of street sweepers who kept everything tidy.

                  I was in Montpelier, in the south of France, in 1989, when the the city was in lockdown due to terrorist threats. There were French soldiers in full battle rattle on every street corner and the streets were patrolled by lots of military vehicles. All of them had heavy machine guns mounted on their pintles and a gunner manning it.
                  “The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction,” Goebbels said as the Nazis rose to power—one of those quotes that sound apocryphal but are not.​
                  — Adam Gopnik

                  Comment

                  • john welsford
                    Senior Member
                    • Sep 2002
                    • 7750

                    #24
                    Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

                    Originally posted by Keith Wilson
                    I presume 'highly socialistic' was ironic? One can say many things about Chile, but socialistic (at least in the old style) it has not been since 1973. And FWIW, the carabineros (the national police force) have for a very long time been far more honest and professional than most other Latin Amrican police - although I realize that at times, that wasn't a very high standard. An offer of a modest bribe to get you out of a speeding ticket or some other minor offense, utterly standard procedure in some places, will get you in serious trouble in Chile, although they might cut you a little slack because of being a foreigner. But even during the darkest days of the Pinochet government right after the coup, the carabineros didn't engage in repression and torture with any enthusiasm, and tried to maintain the rule of law. For the nasty stuff, they had to use the military. These days, I'd trust a Chilean carabinero as much as my local St Paul police, which is quite a compliment - although if anything happened, the Chileans would be a lot more bureaucratic and have innumerable forms to fill out on a manual typewriter in triplicate; they love that kind of thing.

                    Where were you in Chile, BTW? I've been there quite a few times, have a good friend living in the Elqui Valley near Vicuña.
                    Santiago, Valparaiso, PortaMontt, Punta Arenas, Porvenir. The description "Socialistic" was one used by a family court judge with whom we stayed to describe the way their govt works. She's spent time in the USA and in Europe so knows about other countries systems.
                    I very much enjoyed my two trips there, great people.

                    John Welsford
                    An expert is but a beginner with experience.

                    Comment

                    • Chris249
                      Senior Member
                      • Jun 2013
                      • 3316

                      #25
                      Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

                      Originally posted by delecta
                      Why do some here call you a republican? You're anything but. I have concerns when my children board the bus in the morning, how can you not?

                      Have a lovely trip and all of your family a safe return.
                      If you are implying that people in Europe are in more danger of violent death than those in the USA, you are wrong as well as insulting.
                      Last edited by Chris249; 03-19-2017, 04:55 PM.

                      Comment

                      • genglandoh
                        Senior Member
                        • Dec 2010
                        • 10538

                        #26
                        Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

                        Originally posted by Canoeyawl
                        Many police here in the US carry full automatic weapons today.

                        By 2009, the P90 was in service with military and police forces in over 40 countries.[13] In the United States, Houston Police Department was the first local law enforcement agency to adopt the P90, acquiring it for their SWAT team in 1999.[21] In 2003, the Houston SWAT team became one of the first agencies in the country to use the weapon in a shootout.[21] By 2009, the P90 was in use with over 200 law enforcement agencies in the United States,[14] including the Secret Service and Federal Protective Service.[7][39] In response, the National Rifle Association added the P90 and PS90 to its NRA Tactical Police Competition standards, allowing law enforcement agencies to compete in the event using either weapon.[40]
                        wiki
                        LOL When was the last time you saw a US Police person caring an automatic weapon?
                        Go to Paris and you will see the France Military patrolling the streets with automatic weapons.
                        "The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do." Captain Jack Sparrow

                        Comment

                        • genglandoh
                          Senior Member
                          • Dec 2010
                          • 10538

                          #27
                          Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

                          Originally posted by Nicholas Carey
                          I hate to break it to you but this is SOP in la France when the threat level is high.

                          For starters, France has two police forces: the civilian Sûreté nationale (now the Police nationale) and the military Gendarmerie. They both exercise civil authority.

                          Gendarmes are usually armed, in my experience, with submachine guns.

                          And when threat levels escalate, the French ratchet things up. Back in the late 1980s, when terrorism by the Red Brigade and others was at its height, every public trash can in Paris was welded shut and the streets patrolled by heavily armed French Marines. The amount of trash on the street was amazing. Luckily Paris employs a small army of street sweepers who kept everything tidy.

                          I was in Montpelier, in the south of France, in 1989, when the the city was in lockdown due to terrorist threats. There were French soldiers in full battle rattle on every street corner and the streets were patrolled by lots of military vehicles. All of them had heavy machine guns mounted on their pintles and a gunner manning it.
                          Exactly
                          France has declared a nation wide state of emergency in Nov 2015 and started to put Troops on the streets.
                          BTW they extended the state of emergency back in Dec 2016.

                          Title: 13 December 2016 French parliament votes to extend state of emergency until after 2017 elections
                          Link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...2017-elections
                          "The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do." Captain Jack Sparrow

                          Comment

                          • LeeG
                            Senior Member
                            • May 2002
                            • 72769

                            #28
                            Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

                            Murder rate is three times higher in Ohio than France.

                            Comment

                            • Garret
                              Hills of Vermont
                              • Apr 2005
                              • 48606

                              #29
                              Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

                              Originally posted by LeeG
                              Murder rate is three times higher in Ohio than France.
                              I recently spent 3 weeks in Columbus for work. I can't remember a night when there wasn't a murder leading the news.

                              But I guess it's OK 'cause it ain't a furriner doing the murdering.
                              "If it ain't broke, you're not trying." - Red Green

                              Comment

                              • Hugh Conway
                                Banned
                                • Jan 2012
                                • 9162

                                #30
                                Re: France is becoming and armed camp.

                                Mr. Welsford - I wouldn't describe Chile has highly socialistic at all.

                                Originally posted by genglandoh
                                Exactly
                                France has declared a nation wide state of emergency in Nov 2015 and started to put Troops on the streets.
                                BTW they extended the state of emergency back in Dec 2016.

                                Title: 13 December 2016 French parliament votes to extend state of emergency until after 2017 elections
                                Link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...2017-elections
                                Do you have a point? They've had troops on the street intermittently for 220 years. Get a grip.

                                Originally posted by genglandoh
                                LOL When was the last time you saw a US Police person caring an automatic weapon?
                                Last week. LOL

                                Comment

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