…on Crowd of Civilians
Sarkozy Vows Punishment after Soldier Shoots 17
French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised swift and severe punishment Monday after a soldier used real bullets instead of blanks and wounded 17 people at an army base open day.
The sergeant fired his assault rifle into a crowd of hundreds of visitors watching parachute commandos simulate an assault to free hostages Sunday at the base near the southwestern city of Carcassonne.
A three-year-old boy, who took bullets in the heart and in the arm, and both his parents were among the victims, officials said.
An eyewitness told AFP that “suddenly, people were falling, we thought it was part of the exercise, and then we saw blood”.
Sarkozy said after he visited some of the wounded in a Carcassonne hospital that the shooting did not appear to be criminal but that it was the result of “unacceptable negligence” for which he promised a “rapid and severe response.”
Five children were among the 15 civilians wounded.
The three-year-old boy was operated on overnight and was in a stable condition, hospital officials said, adding that two of the victims were in a “serious” condition but all were stable.
Two soldiers were also wounded.
The sergeant who fired the shots from his FAMAS assault rifle was described as an experienced soldier with no history of behavioural or psychological problems.
He is in custody and prosecutors said they will ask judges to charge him with unintentionally inflicting wounds. Three other soldiers detained after the incident were released.
The eyewitness who spoke to AFP and asked not to be named, said there were seven or eight soldiers with guns taking part in the simulation, with one of them in the middle of the hundreds of spectators pretending to be a terrorist.
Immediately after the real shots were fired, “an official shouted out over the loudspeakers “Cease fire!”, he said.
Military and civilian investigators have opened probes into the events at the Third Marine Parachute Regiment barracks.
The use of the live rounds was “99.9 percent” likely to be “an unintentional fault,” said Colonel Benoit Royal, the head of the French army’s information service.
Defence Minister Herve Morin said the shooter had first fired a magazine of blanks and then loaded a fresh magazine but this time with live bullets.
“Why did he have it in his pocket?” asked Morin, who accompanied Sarkozy on his visit to the Carcassonne hospital and to visit other victims taken to another hospital in the nearby city of Toulouse.
The senior official for the Aude region where Carcassonne is located, Bernard Lemaire, said that investigators believed the deadly ammunition was loaded by mistake.
“The question being asked is ‘Did the soldier engage in a criminal act or not?’,” Lemaire said. “For now, no one can answer that, but the theory being worked on is one of error.”
The Third Marine Parachute Regiment based outside of Carcassonne numbers 1,200 troops.
Where's Pat Paulsen when you finally need him?
Lance
Lawrence of Bessarabia
Shlomo Muslim, Ph.D.
Word-Drum
WTF This is the weirdest story. If he thought he was shooting blanks, why did he aim at the crowd? What happened to this frog? Too much wine and cheese?
or Sarko’s wife drove him wild?
I’m surprised a French cheese-dick even knew how to load/fire a weapon, given they’re all such cowards.
We bailed their asses out in two World Wars and they snub us first time we want a favor.
But to answer your question, he’s French…a Frog…no further explanation needed. They’re ungrateful, hubristic, smelly, cowards and arrogant dimwits.
If I ever see a Frog on the battlefield, friend or foe, I’m shooting his ass (lucky for France I’m already retired).
Meanwhile the mujis are kicking the shit out of the Frogs on their own home court — bunch of sissified fags.
Fuck the French!
There are all kinds of stories explaining why everyone, including Lance, calls the French, “Frogs.” The explanation I’m most partial to goes something like this:
It has nothing to do with the French people’s fondness for frogs’ legs, nor does it have anything to do with the Fleur-de-lis looking kind of like a frog, nor does it have to do with some old French guy named Clovis who had frogs embroidered on his clothes. Instead, the name comes from the term used by the French far outside of Paris when talking about the French living closer to and in Paris. In French, “les grenouilles” means the frogs, and that’s what they called the Parisians because the land around Paris was swampy. In time, the term was used to describe all the French.
Once, when I landed at the French airport outside Paris and rode my bicycle into the City, I couldn’t help but notice that Paris indeed was down in the lowlands. And the stinky Seine flowed through it. I guess it makes sense that Paris used to be hopping with frogs, and hence, it still is.
Here’s more ‘Fuck the French’ fodder:
A train is passing through a dark tunnel in the Alps. Four passengers share a compartment, a Frenchman, an American, an elderly woman and a beautiful girl of about 20 years of age.
When the train emerges from the tunnel, the Frenchman has a large red hand print on the side of his face.
He thinks to himself, “The American groped the young girl and she thought it was me and slapped me because of him.”
The girl thinks,”The Frenchman tried to grope me and got the old lady by mistake and she slapped him.”
The old lady thinks,”The Frenchman groped that poor young girl and she slapped him.”
The American thinks,”I can’t wait for another tunnel so I can slap that fucking Frenchman again.”
Good one LoB.
Come on folks, give us your best ones because, after all, Frogs are jokes!