hostage situation

ps- Wanted to write a quick comment about the hostage situation that happend in an elementary school in Besançon yesterday.....

You can probably find a fairly good recount of what happened on the news or online, but basically a depressed, 17 year old boy held a maternelle class hostage, calling the police himself to ask for a gun to shoot himself. It honestly seems like it is more on the news in the US than here because several people emailed me to see if I had heard more about it or asked my parents if I was in any way related.

Besançon, while not that close to Lyon, is closer to me than Paris. It probably takes 1-2 hours by train to get there. It's east of Dijon and fairly close to Switzerland. The topic was brought up at lunch by one teacher, but several others hadn't even heard it had happened! They, themselves didn't seem overly concerned, to the point that they were even joking about it. One teacher was like, you know we really don't have very good security, I'm the first classroom in the hallway, guess it would be me who's class gets taken hostage!

From what I know, France has never had similar experiences to the Columbine shootings or the Virginia Tech shootings. When researching it, the only thing I could find remotely similar was a case in Lyon with an adult firing an air gun at a school, injuring 5 people.

France, in comparison to the US, has very lax security measures in their schools. At the very least, in a typical school in the US, everyone that comes into a school must where some sort of badge or sign in as a visitor. In France, there is usually no such thing as a front office where visitors go for a name tag. Many school principals teach their own classes and do not have a secretary.

On the other hand, teachers do ask parents to leave if they are there during school hours.... I was asked one day if I belonged in the school.... so I think the main defensive measure is the small nature of the school. Elementary schools are so small that everyone knows everyone, from the janitors to the parents. If they don't recognize someone, they ask. In the high schools and middle schools, students attend school much like American students do at a University.... attending their classes, going home on their own during breaks, etc. Teachers also come and go to teach their classes like college professors do. Once again, if you're not supposed to be in the school, you're to go home.... so I guess they hopefully notice loiterers or strangers who are not where they are supposed to be. I think in the bigger high schools/middle schools, there is a front office with a secretary.... but I don't know if they sign in visitors or not.

Another thing to keep in mind, in France, guns are just not as easily accessible. They have much stricker gun control laws.... automatic weapons are banned and there is no right to bear arms. Period. The kid who held the class hostage had long knives and begged the police to give him a gun...When Laurence and I talked about how the US has smoke detectors in every house, while French homes do not, she made the comment that the French may not have smoke detectors, but they also don't have guns... so which country is safer?

So.... although French schools don't have the same type of security measures, or very few standard measures at all for that matter, I don't feel anymore unsafe or safe here than I would at home. I guess everything is relative.... and for us, this type of hostage situation in a school hits a little closer to home because we've seen what horrible things can come from a situation like this....

That's my 2 cents on the subject....