Monday - August 30, 2010

ok so … a couple of scum break into house, man in house opens fire , so he’s a racist.  WTF???

Frenchman in the news.  I guess the folks over there can have guns.  Now we’ll see if they’re allowed to defend themselves.  After all, it isn’t at all as though he shot anything valuable. Like a real person.  Just a couple of itinerant would be thieving traveling burglars. 

Gun-toting grandfather becomes face of racism row

by HARRIET ALEXANDER

WHEN Rene Galinier pulled the trigger on his old hunting rifle, he said he was acting to defend his home. Two young eastern European women had broken into his house while he was taking a siesta, and when the startled 73-year-old woke up, he shot and wounded them both.
Since Mr Galinier fired at the intruders, reverberations have been felt far beyond the four walls of his modest bungalow in a village in south-west France.

The case of “Papy” Galinier has become a cause celebre thanks to the bitter debate caused by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent crackdown on the Roma community in France, which has seen itinerant camps demolished and hundreds of Roma returned to eastern Europe.

On one side stand those who have condemned the expulsions as redolent of Nazi Germany - on the other are those who say Mr Sarkozy has not gone far enough. In the middle of the political maelstrom sits Mr Galinier who is in a local prison cell, charged with attempted manslaughter and denied bail pending trial.
“He was a good man, who had been pushed too far,” said 85-year- old Edouard Martin, a retired policeman and fellow resident of Mr Galinier’s village, Nissan-lez-Enserunes. “People here are scared of the foreigners. I sleep with a revolver by my bed. If someone comes into my house, then I am going to kill them before they kill me.”

Mr Sarkozy started to shut hundreds of illegal Roma camps in response to clashes between police and traveller communities last month. With more expulsions planned, and criticism mounting at home and abroad, he hopes to bolster support for his stance next week by convening a summit of interior ministers from countries facing similar immigration debates. Western European governments are split on the matter. While Italy is considering similar action, Britain will be sending a senior official to the meeting rather than the Home Secretary, Theresa May, for fear of being seen to endorse Mr Sarkozy’s policies.

Nissan-lez-Enserunes, where four generations of the Galinier family live, provides a vivid snapshot of why it has become such a charged issue in France. Not far from Montpellier, it is a picture- postcard image of southern French living, with elegant stone houses set among narrow winding streets filled with flowers. Mr Galinier has lived in the area all his life, raising two children, working for the council, then retiring to spend time with his wife and grandchildren and tend his garden.

He had been targeted by criminals twice before. In 2002, thieves attempted to break in and in February this year goldfish were stolen from his garden pond.
Among villagers, the finger of blame for local petty crime often points - rightly or wrongly - to a patch of wasteland several miles outside the village where a group of Roma recently made camp next to a motorway. The families and their wild-haired children live in ramshackle caravans among piles of rubbish.

On the afternoon of August 5, two women in their early 20s broke into Mr Galinier’s home. The unarmed pair, who speak no French and have not given police their names, were both shot at from just a few yards away. One was hit in the groin, the other in the chest. Both are in hospital awaiting identification and questioning.

ARMED AND FRENCH

Damn!  No kill shot though.  Oh well, we take what we can, when we can. Good for Mr. Galinier.

Posted by peiper     on 08/30/2010 at 10:53 AM   
Filed Under: • FRANCE • Travelers/Gypsies/Squatters •  
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