Yesterday, Saturday, I woke up to news headlines announcing that France had unsuccessfully tried to rescue a soldier held hostage in Somalia since 2009. And that French troops had entered into Mali at the request of the Malian government in Bamako for help in getting rid of the extreme Islamists in the north of the country. And that a demonstration against gay marriage is expected to draw upwards of 500,000 people on Sunday (today.) Coming on the heels of the announcement of an assassination in Paris of three Kurdish activists on Friday made me want to turn the radio off and go back to bed.
The first two items mean that the government has decided to step up the level of the national program "Vigipirate." Apparently the plan has been around since 1978, but the first time I remember living through the implementation of Vigipirate was in 1995 when there was a wave of terrorist attacks that hit France, including several deadly bombings in the Paris metro (one of my teachers ended up in the hospital for several months, having barely escaped with his life.) The effect of the plan was frightening: CRS carrying submachine guns on subways and trains became a factor of ordinary life (the CRS are the police that are traditionally used for crowd control - no joking around here); metal barricades were put in front of schools and public buildings (reducing road width and number of parking spaces, and creating massive traffic jams as an unintended corollary); and - the action that touched me the most personally - in order to get into church for services, I had to have my purse searched, and submit to a metal detecting wand before being waved into the building.
It was interesting watching the news last night. The presenter had a member of his government as an invited guest, and some of the questions were quite direct. "France has promised not to take the lead in combatting international terrorism, so why are we going in to Mali, now?" Unfortunately, the answer was a typical non-answer. I suppose that politicians are fairly similar around the world in their grasp of bureaucra-speak.
On a personal note, I wonder what Vigipirate will mean this time around, and what it means to have so many people on the streets. The politics are not mine - but I can guarantee that today is not the day to try to take a bus or taxi. It means that getting to my mother-in-law's place for Sunday dinner will be a rather longish trip, and I am sure my family will let me know what they think of it all.
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