Failed assasination attempt on Chirac at Bastille Day parade.

July 14, 2002 12:12 PM

Failed assasination attempt on Chirac at Bastille Day parade. According to police reports, the man who fired a rifle as President Jacques Chirac passed by in the parade celebrating the French revolution is a neo-Nazi with a history of emotional problems. Chirac was unhurt.
posted by me3dia (10 comments total)

He was standing next to the Arc de Triomphe, very symbolic. Although he apparently pulled his .22 out of a guitar case, which sounds much more cheesy cinematics, like he's seen too many old mobster flicks.
posted by me3dia at 12:18 PM on July 14, 2002

What I was thinking of was the original movie The Jackal.
The jackal also attempt to kill the french president on Bastille Day.
posted by Iax at 1:07 PM on July 14, 2002

Yeah but the jackal didn't use a lame-ass 22 LR -- it's almost a toy rifle when it comes to killing a moving target in a crowded environment. With that crap you need to be real close to the victim, and need to really nail him in the eye or something. Otherwise it's a crappy, non-lethal tool for carrying out an assassination
The guy wasn't a pro, otherwise Chirac would be a dead man. I'm appalled at French security: they let a guy with a guitar case getting reasonably close to the presidential motorcade, what's that, Dallas Police Department circa 1963?
posted by matteo at 1:28 PM on July 14, 2002

They were probably too busy harassing Arabs and Jews.
posted by donkeyschlong at 1:30 PM on July 14, 2002

Yeah, they're not as kind and tolerant as their LA colleagues, or smart as the DC department
posted by matteo at 1:37 PM on July 14, 2002

Le Pen. Assasinations. Sucky Tour de France riders. More material to combat French superiority complex. At least there's never been an assasination attempt against the mayor of Paramus! Ok. So there is no mayor of Paramus.
posted by ParisParamus at 6:53 PM on July 15, 2002

Astonishingly lucky nobody was hurt. I'll note that John Hinckley got within about 20 feet of Reagan; although he wasn't carrying a guitar case, he was on a watch list. These things happen.

Also, it doesn't take the precedent of a novel to try to assassinate your president on your country's national day.

An interesting sidenote is that a Muslim tourist helped thwart the shooting, a French-Canadian teacher heading to Lebanon.
posted by dhartung at 7:03 PM on July 15, 2002

[obligatory]
It's a good thing Chirac wasn't aware of the attempt until it was all over...

...or France would have surrendered!
[/ob]
posted by five fresh fish at 10:20 PM on July 15, 2002

neo-Nazi with a history of emotional problems
Isn't that redundant? I thought the first requirement of being a Nazi was emotional problems.
posted by owillis at 2:17 AM on July 16, 2002

What I was thinking of was the original movie The Jackal.
The jackal also attempt to kill the french president on Bastille Day.

Ho ho. Frederick Forsyth was actually on the radio the other day saying it was just like the Jackal, apart from the fact the Jackal was a professional assasin whereas this man was a weirdo amateur nut case.
posted by Summer at 3:29 AM on July 16, 2002