French cowardice knows no bounds

Boy, am I glad I’m not a Frenchman. Last week’s dramatic incident on board a Paris-bound train, in which a terrorist atrocity was narrowly averted by a group of heroic passengers, is a stain on French manhood to rival the Battle of Agincourt.

I’m not referring to the incompetence of the French security services, who seem unable to stop terrorists roaming the country, shooting people at will. I’m talking about the response of the French men on the train when they became aware that a crazy-looking Middle Eastern man was stalking the carriages, armed with an assault rifle. The vast majority hid under their seats. Almost the only French nationals to react at all were employees of the Thalys railway company, who, according to one witness (whose account is denied by Thalys), ran from the gunman as fast as they could and locked themselves in an office at the other end of the train.