Back in my younger days, my parents loved a song by Les Baxter, "The Poor People of Paris." To this day, hearing the song reminds me of that cheap GE record player that we bought when we came to the U.S. It was a major achievement finally getting our own set and not having to listen to music on the radio. The song was about life in Paris when it was a French city and not whatever it is now.
Anyway, I mention this because of something really crazy in France this week. There were lots of needles in the wrong places, as we see in this story:
As France's famed street music festival drew record crowds on Saturday night, more than 140 revelers reported being pricked with syringes. French authorities have arrested 12 suspects following the alleged behavior at France's annual Fete de la Musique, per CBS News. The nationwide street music festival drew millions, with Paris seeing especially large crowds. Prior to the event, social media posts had surfaced calling for women to be targeted during the celebrations.
The French interior ministry confirmed 145 people across the country reported being stabbed with needles, with 13 cases in Paris alone. Officials have not stated whether the cases involved so-called needle spiking with date-rape drugs, which have previously been reported in the UK and other European countries. Some victims were hospitalized for toxicological testing. In Paris, police said investigations were opened after reports from three people, including a 15-year-old girl and an 18-year-old man, who said they felt unwell after being stabbed. In the northeastern city of Metz, two men were arrested, including one who was caught with a syringe and recognized by a victim, the Guardian reports.
In the southwestern city of Angouleme, four suspects were detained, suspected of targeting around 50 people. In addition to the syringe-related incidents, authorities detained more than 370 people for various offenses during the festival, about 90 of them in Paris. Fourteen festival-goers were reported seriously injured, including a 17-year-old hospitalized with stab wounds, while 13 law enforcement officers were also hurt. Despite that, the Paris police prefect said no "major incident" had been reported.
No major incident reported? Have they explained that to the people hospitalized? I don't think that they agree with the police definition of “major incident.”
Of course, there is a larger problem here, i.e. crowd control. It appears that there are people in Paris and other towns who don't like walking around and enjoying a musical festival. They want to create chaos and they did.
One of my biggest fears of this Iran-Israel feud is that there are thousands of people in France who just don't like their country very much. I hope that French authorities are ready if riots turn out to protest the U.S. action in Iran.
In the meantime, catch the video. This is not the country that your old high school French teacher used to tell you about.
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Image: Pexels/Anna Tarazevich