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My Town turning into the Wild West?


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It may have only been an air rifle pellet, but someone shot at us and hit M. Idun as we were walking along in the city we first lived in, fortunately it was not summer and he only ended up with a hole in a thick padded coat...... and that was a long time ago. I heard the noise and then he said he'd been shot at, can you imagine, I told him not to be so daft, but lo and behold, the hole and slug were there.  Other friends were shot at a couple of months later, only with real bullets, but that is quite another and very long story, the good thing being that they didn't get hit.

We had our car broken into.

M. Idun was attacked. Our new car when parked was hit by other vehicules a few times, no one ever left a note.

And all that in our first few years in France.

As my sons got older they too were attacked in France.

I truly thought that non rural France was just like that. I noted the thread about should Police be armed. Well, in 'my' France, there were also gangland murders, and darker skinned young men, just looking at say a super car, could end up being shot. Officially, the kid was up to no good, even if they were just going about their daily business.

Armed Police/Gendarmes in France do use their guns.

And maybe even there was a political murder or two too! Officially there was not!!!

NH wasn't it really ever the case that there was always quite a lot of violence?

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I don't remember people shooting at the local buses in the West of England, but then it isn't the North East [6]

Of course most of my comparisons are invalid as I have memories of the UK of 20 years ago, and the experience of France today...

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No this all happened when we arrived in France in the early 80's and the city in question was a big french one! And I assumed that all this was fairly 'normal' in France. So less of the disparaging remarks about NE England where I had NEVER encountered such behaviour until the time I left, or since I have returned!

Apart from me all the family has been attacked in France and no where else!

I must admit my best friend in France made me a bit paranoic last time I was back, really, she went on and on about me getting mugged when I went back to that city that I was starting to lose confidence in 'me'. In the end, I reckoned that looking like a would-be victim was inviting trouble, so I stopped being silly about it.

I am not saying that there is not any violence or shooting in the UK, there is, it is reported on the news. However, the police generally are not armed and there are certainly fewer shootings. And for all I hear little good about the police in the UK from most people, I unhesitatingly tell them that the gendarmes / police in France are far worse and appear to not only not give a hoot, but are not overly intelligent either for the most part....... I can only tell as I find.

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Of course it could also be the Front National heating things up so people vote to arm the traffic wardens...the main policy of the candidate who is likely to be elected...[:-))]

Well it is the Police Municipale to be fair, but they are only glorified Traffic wardens..

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Couple of years after moving to Cheltenham in the late 80s, I persuaded a friend to join the firm I was working for. He was from Lichfield which made him a Brummie in the eyes of Cheltonians. One elderly colleague on being introduced to him said "Oh, Birmingham. What an awful place. You'll find it much nicer down here." As dead-pan as he could manage he responded: "Well I have been here 3 weeks. My car has been broken into and then stolen. The landlord of a town centre pub who had just moved here from Manchester was attacked by a complete nutter with a machete. And I have just read in the Glos Echo that a woman has been murdered in a Cheltenham supermarket car park. I've never experienced anything like it in 30 years in "Birmingham" and the pub landlord said it was worse than anything that had happened to him in central Manchester." OK, his timing wasn't great and Cheltenham is by no means a dangerous place in general but things aren't always as they are made out to be, good or bad.
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