ITALIAN NEWSMAN 'CLINICALLY DEAD' AFTER PARIS METRO ASSAULT
Aug 16th, 2007, 10:11 AM
#21
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I may have a false impression of how save France is or was
My son recently told me that he has been robbed by intimidation twice when he was a teen-ager in downtown Orleans, his hometown, at night by young hoodlums (won't describe ethnicity for fear of being a racist)
this shocked me - totally shocked me - i'm not sure it was random attacks or aquaintances from school, whatever but he says he feels much safer here in the U.S., in our middle-class mid-west town than in Orleans, at least at night.
But i don't think the casual tourist would run into this.
Once however on a train platform in Paris' northern suburbs i was eating a pain au chocolate waiting for a commuter train and a guy asked me for some of my pastry - i shook my head now but he became very threatening so i gave it to him and walked away.
I still feel much safer in France than in any large U.S. city.
My son recently told me that he has been robbed by intimidation twice when he was a teen-ager in downtown Orleans, his hometown, at night by young hoodlums (won't describe ethnicity for fear of being a racist)
this shocked me - totally shocked me - i'm not sure it was random attacks or aquaintances from school, whatever but he says he feels much safer here in the U.S., in our middle-class mid-west town than in Orleans, at least at night.
But i don't think the casual tourist would run into this.
Once however on a train platform in Paris' northern suburbs i was eating a pain au chocolate waiting for a commuter train and a guy asked me for some of my pastry - i shook my head now but he became very threatening so i gave it to him and walked away.
I still feel much safer in France than in any large U.S. city.
Aug 16th, 2007, 10:13 AM
#22
Maybe it's time to go back to a lighter note: why on earth is a metro station in Paris called Bir-Hakeim?
It is an oasis in Libya, where the Free French Forces (including Spanish Republicans in the Foreign Legion) battled with Rommel's Afrika Korps and also the Italian army from 26 May to 11 June 1942. The French lost the battle (I'm sure that this will not surprise a lot you), but it allowed the nearby British to regroup and win an important battle at El Alamein. Although Tobruk fell anyway, the siege of Bir-Hakeim helped to save Alexandria, Cairo and the Suez Canal.
It is an oasis in Libya, where the Free French Forces (including Spanish Republicans in the Foreign Legion) battled with Rommel's Afrika Korps and also the Italian army from 26 May to 11 June 1942. The French lost the battle (I'm sure that this will not surprise a lot you), but it allowed the nearby British to regroup and win an important battle at El Alamein. Although Tobruk fell anyway, the siege of Bir-Hakeim helped to save Alexandria, Cairo and the Suez Canal.
