Thanks for answering. I do wonder whether in such situations you could use a tranquiliser dart. But I suppose you need a clear line of sight for that and it's not like bullets that can go through the cab of a lorry. And particularly not very easy if he's shooting back.
When it's all about blindly following religion and interpreting/obeying what some remote person wrote down hundreds of years ago, the chances of reason do seem rather bleak don't they. But there is an underlying disaffection isn't there, that France have this long colonial past in North Africa and they had Syria once and now they've been bombing the hell out of it. You can see why some people might feel they have enough resentment to want to give a bit back. That the religion legitimises it to them but there's an underlying rationale, is that right.
So if they see France as the enemy and ordinary french people as barely human enough to worry about mowing over with a massive truck, and it's way beyond any point where you might be able to sit down with french government and discuss your grievances - that's surely how the terrorists are perceived by france as well, that they aren't human and rational enough to have motives and they couldn't explain them anyway, that it's past the point where it can be fixed.
I suppose it'll just go on for ever and ever then. But who would have thought the situation in northern Ireland would ever get resolved (or somewhat resolved anyway). And that came about by people speaking to people. But I suppose there's much more to overcome in the french situation, there's a cultural and religious divide that makes both sides seem even more alien to the other.
Sorry about this, just thinking aloud. I'm grateful to have somewhere to do so, especially with everything going on at the moment. There are real-life opportunities but I'm actually very glad to have somewhere like this to talk about stuff like this with you lot. (Right, that's quite enough, don't get soft now.)
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