If these reports are true, and more than 13,000 people have lost their lives due to the heat wave in France - then no amount of ridicule or mockery of the country and its policies can dull the terrible tragedy this represents.
I'll be the first on this site to say that these innocent people and their families are in my prayers, and should be in all of ours. May God grant them peace.
you get what you want you should be happy right now
Innocent seems to be an overstatement don't you think, theres no exact count of how many of them were Nazis, anti-Amercians, or just plain not nice people.
Oh piss off the lot of you. Death is not pretty, nor worth praising - certainly not in this case. To do so is callous.
Fuck The french. Reap what you sow. Of course the pm "held out his hand in solidarity" for the suffering. What a load of crap these frog pols. play "on their suffering masses". FIRST IRAQ, THEN france. SHOCK & AWE WORLD TOUR !! USA.USA.USA.USA
THIS TRAGEDY NEVER NEEDED TO HAPPEN...
It is readily apparent that NO measures of intervention were ever implemented, even after a recognition of a serious problem by the medical community.
No governmental intervention,...No intervention by the French citizenry...Nothing!
No "cooling centers", ...No "well being" checks,...No media warnings...Nothing!
Everyone denied that there was a problem until it was too late to do anything about it!
Now 15,000 of your elderly and infirm will have died...and the French political establishment and the citizens of France are looking for someone to blame.
LOOK IN THE MIRROR!!!
It seems that the French people have no individual sense if culpability, responsibility or accountability...
I have a feeling that the French politicians and bureaucrats will, once again, find a way to blame Americans for their problems.
Your wrong Dan. If there were people who held America in high regard, if there were people in France that held justice in high regard, they were in the age group of these victims.
I beleive and dread in my heart that these were not random deaths. Rather that these old Frenchmen with their tales of the liberation became a thorn in the side. They didn't play into the popular political color of the moment. They told what their eyes remembered about America. First hand witnesses poking a pin in the fashionable French ego. And it costs money to feed them too.
How easy it must have been to shutter the windows and leave grandma behind when taking the family to the seashore for vacation.
Fiery Celt wrote "It seems that the French people have no individual sense if culpability, responsibility or accountability..."
You are absolutely right. The French have been lectured for decades about solidarity and fraternity, however as this is "implemented" through the state by taxing citizens to the hilt, so they feel why bother on a personal level, it's the state's responsibility.
Similarly, they have not saved for their retirement due to the "solidarity between the generations". Well this is one Ponzi scheme that is drawing rapidly towards its logical conclusion. As the post war generation move into retirement (some can retire as young as 50), the next generation are going to be saddled with an ever increasing tax burden simply to provide an ever poorer package for retirees.
Another socialist experiment moving into meltdown mode. And if you don't believe me, well wait till the workers(strikers)get back from their month's vacation. September 2003 will be a famous month in France's social history.
Another socialist experiment moving into meltdown mode.
Edmund Burke, surging from the 18th century, to defend the French monarchy and advice them to suppress free opinion?
fiery celt,
There was clearly a problem, but this heat wave was unique in its length and intensity (all the records have been broken). hospitals were lacking funds and personals, the media were mute, nobody was prepared to that. Plus the money to take care of the elderly was divided by 2 this year (to finance a tax cut for the richest between other things).
Who said anything about supressing free opinion? I beleive that we're talking about the trend in socialist countries for a decreasing number of people to actually work. I mean, why work when one can simply live the good life of football, government checks, and the occasional riot to liven things up. As for tax cuts, maybe the french government decided it would be nice to allow one of the @ 10 productive french citizens keep a little of their own money (instead of moving to Monte Carlo). If you bleed someone to quickly, they tend to die on you.
While I agree that the French people are incredibly stupid, wrong-headed and hateful, (except for Lafayette of course who is long dead), I cannot help but be saddened for them by this. My sympathies are with the French people now, of course just until they open their mouths again and ruin it.
They should also look at climate data for interglacial periods for the last million years, and see that we may well be in for worse. Since we still haven't reached the temperature levels we were at when the little ice age began about 500 years ago, and which we have been coming out of for a couple of hundred years, anyway. How to blame it on Bush, though....
The free expression so bloodily suppressed in the Vendee.
Someone brought up the fact that many in france don't have air conditioning due to the high cost or electricity in france. Now, is that the fault of the greenie nose ringers, the tax hungry polilicos, or both?
Someone brought up the fact that many in france don't have air conditioning due to the high cost or electricity in france.
No it's just for the same reason why Finland have even less air conditioning than us.
Sure, and also why New Guinea leads the world in home heating. However, how many heat related deaths did Finland have? Was this Paris' first heat wave? Is france above the artic circle?
Some of you were talking about free expression...
Check this out:
FORBIDDEN - Saint-Antoine Parisian hospital, where very popular President of Emergency doctors Patrick Pelloux works, has been forbidden to journalists since yesterday: "The order to keep me quiet comes from the top", Pelloux believes. The hospital was unwilling to comment.
I'm afraid the number of victims may be even more important than they'll let us believe or know.
On another note, doesn't socialized medicine gaurentee that hospitals have all of the money that they need? Or that care is denied to none?
It's not surprising that the french did nothing to prevent or intervene in this tragedy. They have no one to blame but themselves. What irks me is that the french let thier egos get in the way of asking for assistance. Yes, they would have had to suck it up a moment or two. France needs to face what the world already knows. It's not a world power, not capable of handling a crisis without another powerful country coming to their aid. Too bad they pissed off the best friend they could ever hope to have.
As i feared, not all but some of the families when notified of Mama or Papa's Untimely demise said stick them on ice, we're on vacation.
Came back from Greece where the weather is fabulous. Utterly perfect, Before I left I'm sitting with my relatives watching the evening news and my uncle starts ranting and tosses out this lines:
"Growing up we never had AC. The villages never had it. For the 3 months of summer its at minimum 100 degrees every day and still the old widows dressed in black would do their errands."
"How can they lose 13,000 people? Did the Germans lose that many? The Swiss? Its just as hot there."
"In Irak its a 110 degrees and everyday the Americans get shot, and still they don't die due to the heat."
"Do the Iraki people die from the heat? Maybe all the graves they found in Irak are from heat related deaths and Saddam was covering it up.(sarcastic smirk)"
"The French lost a division worth of people in 3 weeks. MAybe the heat came from GErmany."
"The only people happy in France are in the Social Security department since France no longer has to pay their pensions."
The last line got a smirk out of me. Only a Greek paranoid mind would think that the death of 13,000 people was caused by the government in order to save money and become more solvent.
Isn't that the most wonderful tan wormie has?
Elle a fait un nombre important de victimes et c'est ŕ chacune de ces victimes que je pense d'abord, naturellement. J'exprime ŕ leurs familles et ŕ leurs proches ma profonde solidarité et celle de la Nation", a dit Jacques Chirac.
Solidarity with the People who locked Grandma up while they left on vacation to the sea shore. How typical of him! Perhaps President Chiraq woould like to visit the States before returning from his holiday in Canada. We have some airport security who are looking forward to giving this man the full cavity search.
Big lou said "The only people happy in France are in the Social Security department since France no longer has to pay their pensions."
That was one of the first things I thought of when I heard the unusually high number of deaths in frances elderly and fragile. They are going to save a fortune in pensions, medical and assisted living bills. Let Grandma and Grandpa bake in their own juices. Oh, the humanity! Yeah big lou, why DID the french lose so many people compared to germany, etc.
Edmund burke said a mouthful when he called frances retirement system "one Ponzi scheme that is drawing rapidly towards its logical conclusion."
I'm still waiting to hear from our trolls on this issue. Does it really take this long to find a reason to blame Bush? I know, maybe change the subject with one of the ever popular "this site is racist and hateful" canned rants. It's been a few days since the last one.
That's right, Chirac must look for the power system in USA :) he should look how well the policeman handle the virginia killer case
"look for power system in USA"? I think you mean look at the power system in the USA. Why not. Who would have thought that New York city residents would be more civilized than folks in Canada, or france for that matter. Meanwhile, as Carnie notes, the french are saying piss off to their own families, we're on holiday. When New Yorkers are going out of their way to help each other out, the french are going out of their way to look out for themselves.
Okay, enough with that stupid "look at the blackout in the USA" remark!
France, a country sooooooo respectful of the environment, contrary to the US as I'm sure 'Bob le simpliste' would argue, was on the verge of possible blackouts 2 weeks ago, because of the heat.
There were, then, 2 solutions:
1. Risking blackouts or stopping some nuclear plants for some time to allow them to cool down
2. Allowing nuclear plants to pump back into rivers the water they use without giving it the time to cool down, hence endangering the environment and the river life.
The French government chose the second solution.
But some nuclear plants had to be switched off due to cooling problems too.
Indeed, there have been blackouts in Paris due to heat and then in different parts of France, because of storms that followed.
In addition, you have to take into consideration the fact that it happened in August, when many people are on vacation (hence not working) and France is very ill-equipped - if not at all - with a/c. Hence, as this article notices: yes, it could happen in France too, even if it is for different reasons.
Its electricity network is bracing for its toughest technical, but also political, test in years after a heatwave and prolonged drought exposed the flaws of a near-total dependence on nuclear power.
Millions of homes, factories and offices are due to switch back on after the holiday period. That will unleash a 10 per cent power surge that could overload a grid already struggling with cable breakages caused by blazingly hot weather, plants closed for summer maintenance and record demand from refrigerators, fans and airconditioners.
Of course New Yorkers are more civilized than the French. I'm not surprised at all. Any American thinking New Yorkers are uncivilized, rude, unpolite should be required to spend a few days in Paris. No, I'm kidding, I wouldn't inflict this on any American ;) But I'm serious, New Yorkers are angels compared to Parisians.
When I was young my mother used to tell me that God would heap on my head what I whished on others. Not too long ago the French were giddy with the mere notion that "10,000's) of US soldiers would die at the hands of Saddam. When this didn’t happen they were sad. Then one US soldier a day was killed in Iraq, again, glee and jubilation at our misfortune. Well, God has heaped on the French heads exactly what they wished to happen to the US. I do believe it is punishment from God.
To believe that, because 2 frenchmen (Chirac and Villepin) didn't followed the US on the Iraq war, God punished and killed 10 000 french, mostly elderly people in their 80's and 90's, some veterans who fought alongside US and British troops in WW I and II, to believe that is just nonsense.
I do believe it is punishment from God.
Heat wave, a punishment from God ...
Who is this moron ?
Interesting consideration Jack. Keep on going this way.
What about 9/11 ? Isn't it a punishment from God too ?
Heat wave, a punishment from God ...
Who is this moron ?
Gotta go with Marc on this one.
Interesting consideration Jack. Keep on going this way.
What about 9/11 ? Isn't it a punishment from God too ?
I actually had heard that one. Extremist Christians in the US and both moderate and extremist Muslims.
Kal
