You're welcome
. And that story about your friend's daughter's school mate-yeow. Thank goodness she escaped.
thanks x
it was a young boy and he was there with his dad - cannot begin to imagine how terrifying it must have been to be in that situation with your child - both escaped thank goodness!
have since heard my daughter's schoolfriend was stuck on the metro just under Bastille during the shootings, utter panic and then got evacuated by the police, and then another friend of a friend was in a restaurant nearby which locked its doors and shutters when gunshots were heard nearby, and kept everyone inside until 3am when things had calmed down
tonight we ended up going out with frenchie friends as a sort of antidote even though i really didn't feel like going any where - went to a tiny local concert, followed by a restaurant, out in good company til after midnight, doing all the things that got attacked last night - we will fucking hold on to our freedoms
and i think re. Irvine's article, it's the shock factor - Paris, France, the concept is meant to be Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite, and thing is, we're just not used to "religious" wars here in this day and age (historically yes, but France battled that a loooong time ago, and its whole constitution is built around secularity because of its history of religious bloodshed) - i think it's the fact that IS want to bring the war out of the Middle East and into Europe - and what happened last night certainly feels like an act of war
we're a multicultural society, anything and everything goes, my daughter's school friends are a sweet mix of kids from all backgrounds atheists, catholics, protestants, Jews and Muslims, and that is meant to be acceptable here, we're meant to be tolerant, to co-exist and respect each other's beliefs and freedoms, live and let live
the extremists are trying to stoke up hatred amongst the French against the local Muslim communities, to divide France, and ostracise and radicalise the young - i just hope people can see thru this and hope that the far right will not gain any more ground and cause more damage - real worrying times and just have no idea what the future will bring
eta: articles like those that bring up the "colour" card are a little bit insulting - the author should take a trip to Paris and see how multicultural it is - Parisians of all different colours are reeling from these events right now