French airports seem peaceful and all airports are just bustling with activity, but one little thing and all of a sudden out of nowhere you see the army with automatic weapons pop up. When everything checks out fine, they engage people in friendly chat.
Case in point: coming back through Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, just as we were going to go through to body scanners and all, the process was stopped cold and the whole area of the airport around that corridor emptied. Some guy, whose name they knew, had left his carry on and went somewhere. The bomb squad showed up, everyone was looking on, and after about 45 mins, it was all cleared, because I think they found him, and he claimed his piece of crap. In the meantime I saw some of the most sophisticated weapons parade in front of my eyes.......Even the pilots going to the gates were stopped from proceeding.. But not one person in the crowd of people waiting to get to their gates seemed alarmed or worried.
France is on high alert. In Frankfurt, at the airport, same thing with going through security. But otherwise, you don't see much, but you know they are lurking somewhere out of sight.
In the end, if someone wanted to blow himself up in a crowd, he or she could easily do it anywhere, anyplace, here or there. The only thing preventing such a thing is information and intelligence capabilities. If you can't get to them before they set out to blow themselves up, or kill people, they will blow themselves up, and/or will kill people before you get the chance to put their lights out. The museums, the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, all have big crowds around them, day in day out. the lines at these places to get tickets are huge this time of year, it was amazing. The check in areas at airports across Europe, whether it is Frankfurt, the biggest transfer airport in Europe, Paris, or Athens, or many others, are all full of people at all times of day or night.
Hopefully, these suckers will be caught before they sting. I still can't believe how a truck could mow down so many who could see it coming. It is bizarre to me.
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