Sarkozy gives Paris a Cop show again!

international | crime and justice | other press Tuesday September 26, 2006 11:15 by scorchio

Last week 2 officers of the French police force were attacked while doing thier rounds in one of the sink estates that adorn every urban centre in that country. Nothing strange in that you may say. They dress like soldiers these days because they're used to being attacked. But Sarkozy saw his opportunity to highlight like no other can - the difference a poor unfashionable neighbourhood enjoys in "comunity policing".

Yesterday afternoon a force of at least 200 riot police "surgically extracted" 12 teenage suspects from the Corbeil-Essonnes / Tarterets housing estate of Paris. Somewhere buses don't go coz they were all burned last year.

Local French press talks of an un-neccesary "police spectacle", yesterday's para-military operation cost a fortune & there is a certain problem with any proper case arising from the assault on the police officers last week. Can the minister of the interior be sure that after yesterday's full scale incursion that the 12 teenagers under arrest were indeed responsible?

Or were they just the unlucky ones?

Will other police officers be safer now?

Will little mrs de vendeville feel safer buying her baguette?

Does this "operation" set an exciting new precedent? a sort of real-life cops french style? As indeed the ministry of the Interior thought to invite journalists and telly along before hand & explain to them in a press briefing that they were about to witness 220 CRS agents swat team a housing estate complete with all the usual support....
* water cannon.
* big guns.
* fire brigade.
* bigger guns.
* megaphones.
* bleeding liberals complaining about it the next day.
* small easy to carry but quite lethal guns.
* flags
* uniforms.
* a-t-t-i-t-u-d-e
* Helicopters!

To finish this - just consider little mrs de Vendeville and her baguette, will she ever count on such protection & retributive power?
Is it possible that she & all her innocent law abiding neighbours might have felt unduely intimidated as 11 teenagers were "surgically extracted"?
http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/societe/206754.FR.php
http://permanent.nouvelobs.com/
http://www.boursier.com/vals/all/operation-de-police-au...0.htm
http://permanent.nouvelobs.com/societe/20060926.FAP4196...?0833