NEWS: French Troops Storm Seized Vessel

French special forces have recaptured a cargo/passenger vessel that was hijacked to the Corsican port of Bastia by striking union workers. Commandos abseiled to the deck of the Pascal Paoli from five helicopters as it came into port after being taken over in Marseille late on Tuesday. The unions are protesting against the privatisation of the debt-ridden state-owned ferry company, the SNCM.



Why on earth did these people hijack a ferry just to get their point accross?

Wouldnt it have been easier just to go on strike?

They were risking their own lives by doing this, the French forces could have easily mistaken there cause and shot them!

Seems a very silly thing to do just because your annoyed at a company!


What if the French had opened fire?

Come on people...this is the French we are talking about!

These are paramilitary forces we are talking about, you wouldn't be making that joke if you knew half of the the crap they have to deal with. They have been dealing with Terrorism far longer then America has that's for sure...

I gave this a "YES" vote

Good article, Five helo's....damn, that's alot of troops.

Anyways, what did the pissed off protestors expect?!?! I hope they all some sort of harsh punishment.

CNN is reporting that the French faked the assault on the ship so as to expedite their complete surrender. Apparently, in an update version of the trojan horse, french forces raided the ship and pretended to sieze control from the striking workers. Once on board they surrendered to the workers.

Awesome! 50 commandos versus 30 unarmed union guys... Man, I would wet myself if I were one of the union members. Definitely a smooth operation - 10 minutes to land, break through the barriers, control the crowd, and capture the helm. Glad no one got hurt!

Zip

Like I said they have allot of practice with this sort of thing...

the french shoot something??? what?!?!! common get serious for once...they prolly made a maginot line on the water forcing the ship to go around it...and to completely avoid any opposition...

[edit on 9/28/2005 by Zach]

Originally posted by Zach
the french shoot something??? what?!?!! common get serious for once...they prolly made a maginot line on the water forcing the ship to go around it...and to completely avoid any opposition...

[edit on 9/28/2005 by Zach]

Why would they even consider shooting unarmed civilians.. Oh wait you're an american aren't you? To you they would be Enemy Combantants

why the french jokes? its not funny after so long and ignorant too, i mean we ran in somolia, refused to enter baghdad in the first gulf war, we ran from lebanon in 1982, in both world wars we were neutral for years and cowardly proffited off arms to both sides, i could list many but i think i made the point.

Originally posted by namehere
why the french jokes? its not funny after so long and ignorant too, i mean we ran in somolia, refused to enter baghdad in the first gulf war, we ran from lebanon in 1982, in both world wars we were neutral for years and cowardly proffited off arms to both sides, i could list many but i think i made the point.

It's the "in" thing to do on ATS.. bash the french and whine about Anti-American sentiment.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 9/28/2005 by QuietSoul]

this always makes me laugh and many people know it.

at google type in french military victories and hit "feeling lucky"

Originally posted by Crakeur
this always makes me laugh and many people know it.

at google type in french military victories and hit "feeling lucky"

Yeah, funny site but is quite inacurate in parts. Also, it is a fake Google search page..check the URL.

My respect for the French has been waxing somewhat over these past few weeks... they've made the news a few times recently for having dealt with a terrorist threat in a judicious and efficient manner.

Besides, why would one insult them for having stayed out of the war in Iraq? It's not like that was the smartest thing the U.S. has ever done...

The French GIGN are tough bastards by any standard. Haven't you guys played Counter-Strike!?

GIGN is one of the world's busiest and best Counter-Terrorist units. Between 1974 and 1985 they participated in over 650 operations that freed over 500 hostages and eliminated dozens of terrorists. Over 1,000 have been arrested. In that same time they suffered 5 dead and dozens severly wounded (nine were wounded in the recent assault of Air France flight 8969).

GIGN was initially formed in 1974 and was to be no greater than 100 operators. Since then it has never been larger than 90 members. GIGN has always been inventive and effective in their operations. In their operational debut, a takedown of a bus in Djibouti (February, 1976), sandwiches that were permitted by the terrorists to be fed to the hostages were drugged. The tranquilized hostages (30 school children) fell asleep, thus clearing the view for GIGN snipers.

Zip

[edit on 9/28/2005 by Zipdot]

Originally posted by stumason

Originally posted by Crakeur
this always makes me laugh and many people know it.

at google type in french military victories and hit "feeling lucky"

Yeah, funny site but is quite inacurate in parts. Also, it is a fake Google search page..check the URL.

I didn't say it was a google site, merely that it was accessible via google.

we're french bashing here, n'est pas?

Originally posted by Crakeur
I didn't say it was a google site, merely that it was accessible via google.

we're french bashing here, n'est pas?

You might be, but I don't see any others. Come on, why do you Yanks feel the need to piss on the French at every opportunity?

Us English have more cause to hate them than you do, we have after all been at war with them on and off for a thousand years. Its only been 100 years since the signing of the Entente Cordial, but before that, we were killing each other quite regulary.

And all they did to you was say "non" when you wanted to invade Iraq for WMD...no wait...it was to liberate the Iraqi's...no..wait...its to stop the terrorists (that weren't there before the invasion!)...no...what is it this week?