“France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced that BAC officers would now be toting similar guns and armor as the country’s special intervention forces,” news.vice.com reports, “including assault rifles, ballistic shields, thicker bulletproof vests, and bulletproof helmets.” We’re talking an initial deployment of 204 H&K G36 sub-guns. Yes, but — what of allowing free French citizens to arm themselves? You are joking, yes? Fear not Frenchmen, le government has a plan . . .
As well as bigger guns and better protective gear, BAC officers may soon be getting a new fleet of vehicles, equipped with “secure trunks” to stash their new weapons . . .
Cazeneuve also announced the government would recruit an extra 550 officers to be deployed alongside the monitoring and intervention units of the Gendarmerie, a unit of the army that carries out policing duties.
“The deployment will start soon, and will continue all through 2016,” a spokesperson for the Gendarmerie told VICE News, declining to give any further information on the deployment of the extra staff.
According to French daily Le Figaro, these heavily armed “supergendarmes” will be able to intervene anywhere in the country “within 20 minutes” of receiving a call. In a crisis, they would be charged with containing the threat until the elite RAID and BRI units show up.
Cazeneuve said that authorities were working on a plan to better coordinate these separate intervention units. “The security of France is at stake,” he said.
Vive la France! Vive la Liberté! Oh wait . . . the country’s still under emergency orders allowing warrantless search and indefinite detainment. Well, as they say in France, lorsque les secondes comptent, la police est à seulement vingt minutes loin. And rest assured that the principle of self-defense is very much on France’s mind.
Another key factor, according to [German sociologist Fabien] Jobard, is the debate surrounding the legal definition of self-defense, which was sparked by the January 2015 attacks. Right now, French police officers can open fire only to defend themselves. “If this notion is relaxed, then some of these fears may be justified,” he noted.
See? Nothing to worry about.
Within 20 minutes!
Truly the most civilized nation.
When seconds count, a good guy with a gun is only 20 minutes away!
Maybe there will be a special rack in their new “secure trunks” for buckets and mops.
Secure trunks only work if you put the gun on the INSIDE, which some LEOs of various agencies haven’t figured out yet.
I believe it comes standard with a yellow “Crime Scene” tape dispenser and a full 53-color kit of drawing chalk. After all, this is France – we can’t expect the imminently fashionable supergendarmes to have to use boring old white chalk to outline the bodies of its defenseless citizens every time their called to a scene, can we?
Ethan,
You failed to mention that their Crime Scene tape is available in various chic background colors and avant-garde fonts.
And a good guy taking orders from the very worst of guys, to boot……
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the cops arrive on the scene at that concert but diddle around for almost an hour before entering? At any rate, as I recall, the bad guys had about an hour of free-fire time, and I don’t think it took the cops an hour to get to the scene.
Nah, two beatcops forced their way in and shot one of the attackers but when they got hosed with an AK they retreated.
Friends don’t let friends go to a gunfight with just a pistol.
these heavily armed “supergendarmes” will be able to intervene anywhere in the country “within 20 minutes”
When seconds count, the cheese eating, surrender monkeys are only 20 minutes away…
YAY A POLICE STATE GETTING BIGGER!
20 minutes???
What’s the fire department response time? Only during business hours? (9 to 5 pm)? After that your on your own?
Wow!
They have got to get the public armed.
At least with potaytoes guns.lol
And you missed the other part of the statement
Thus they would make sure and limit terrorists to only killing the several hundred people inside the recently secured building, rather than spilling outside to kill people in the street or other buildings.
That might not be a bad strategy, though. The terrorists, after killing all 200 people in the secured building in the first 5 minutes, would become bored beyond description waiting for the real police to show up and probably kill themselves.
“Supergendarme” sounds like the title of a Luc Besson movie.
Super gendarme!!!
Well it took the French government seven years to send ships & men to help with the American Revolution.
Amazing how government’s are obstructionist in the cause of personal defense, even more so citizens themselves are not demanding to be armed.
I guess it should be turned around and said “Dear citizens, you’re defenseless for up to 20 minutes.”
This is a perfect example of stop asking for permission! Tool up Froggies!
Jesus ! If only we could ! France is becoming slowly a third-world fascist state
At least the bad guys will have another source for some relatively decent firepower. / sarc
This is what happens when your a-hole neighbors gang up on you and call themselves “government” and you don’t pay attention.
Hmmm… 20 minutes. Just enough time to bleed out.
The French may have gotten rid of their monarchy, but maybe the psyche of the French people hasn’t changed much since the days of the Sun King. They’re still looking for someone to fix the problem for them, someone to tell them everything will be fine.
Charles ‘The Hammer’ must be turning over in his grave!
The old fundamental truth that “freedom isn’t taken away, it’s given away” is only true up to the tipping point. As soon as a government deprives the governed of the means to resist by force, that government’s options expand to include everything from benevolent tolerance to utter slavery.
Maintaining a democracy requires both the will and the means. Europeans forfeited the means decades ago by tolerating disarmament for the myth of public order; having been disarmed, they now have neither. Now they are faced with hordes of immigrants who fully intend to restructure European culture, government and religion, and only able to rely on their inept and misguided public officials. They’d better get out their knee pads because it takes a while for those callouses to build up.
I remember when Europe, especially France, bemoaned the befouling of their cultural purity by the likes of McDonald’s, Gap, and Disney. Nowadays they readily welcome teeming hordes of interlopers bent on eradicating them.
As much as that bugs them, what *really* pisses them off is when ‘foreign’ (read-American) words and phrases pollutes the French language…
The one thing the French have consistently failed at for the last two hundred years or so is self defense. They do make nice wine, though the Muslims they are in the process of surrendering to will likely outlaw that once they have finished taking over the country.
In living memory, Europe had WWI, WWII, the Cold War, and now this slow motion suicide of sovereignty punctuated by the occasional homicide. It’s a sort of Luke Warm War that is bizarre to witness.
Just wait until you get to see it up close in your own backyard.
If the French people are so much more advanced than Americans, you’d think the French government would be open to allowing citizens to conceal carry guns after a mental health test, a thorough criminal background check, a permit fee, and a lengthy live fire qualification process… but no. No, the French government considers even the strictest of qualifications to be able to carry a gun even worse than a terror attack.
Congrats Western Europe, you’re doomed to fade from history because of your oppressive governments. ‘Tis fitting since your entire history has been that of oppressive government and making subjects of its people.
This is why America was made: to be an alternative to Europe and that’s why any politician that makes Europe out to be superior is a politician that must be put down immediately.
European nations will not fade out. They won’t burn out. They’ll just sell out.
We have figured out why France won’t let their citizens be armed. It would take France to long to surrender to the next invading force. Every time more than 3 Germans cross the border the French start trying to surrender. If they citizens had firearms then France would have to wait till they had 5 Germans crossing the border.
It looks like France’s red phyrigian caps are bit faded these days.
Its sad to think that the two dope dealers from South America that took out one of the terrorists were not mentioned in the U.S. and barely in the French News. It was not permissible to mention them because both governments do not want to admit that yes indeed an armed populous is often the best defense against terrorists.
Why is France purchasing the problematic G36? They’re not going for HK416s or something domestic, or at least from FN?
They’ve been moving towards the G36 in some military branches as well.
Cost?
Yay! 20 minutes! I hope that’ll make ’em safer!
The CC issue aside… When the Czech police decided in 2015 to have teams of heavily armed policemen in the field at all times, they set the target as being able to reach and engage perpetrator at any urban area within 10 minutes of receiving the call by at least two CQB well trained cops armed with select-fire rifles and heavy duty ballistic protection.
http://video.idnes.cz/?c=A160223_165011_zlin-zpravy_ras&idvideo=V160223_151806_zlin_jda
To any reasonable person, 10 minutes must sound as good as forever, but given that we don’t have a police state, it seems as the best the police force can strive for.
But 20 minutes? That kind of sounds like “we will do something just to show effort, but don’t expect anything really helpful.”
Any intruders at my compound will be met by a heavily armed individual…IMMEDIATELY. (translated: toot suite)
Twenty minutes? Plenty of time for the terrorists to murder a whole bunch of people, and take a latte break while re-loading their empty mags before the “good guys” with guns show up. (if they already haven’t ex-filtrated undercover with the stampeding herd).
Those H&K’s will soon be on Armslist: “For Sale: LNIB French Army rifle, never fired, dropped only once”.
That must be where century arms gets all of their HKs…
Wow, France is so well disarmed that just to prove how everyone is now even more super duper delux safer than ever, they’re going to give even more toys to their security services, just because they’d never have to use them now.