HOW WILL RECENT SHOOTINGS IN FRANCE AFFECT FRENCH ELECTION?

The expected winner, as of yesterday, of the French Presidential election next month is the Socialist Francois Hollande. But if enough voters could be persuaded to not vote for him, either by abstaining or by voting for another candidate, then Sarkozy stands a chance of winning. Another possibility is that Sarkozy steals the anti-immigrant vote from Marine le Pen of FN.

Sarkozy has served the Anglo-American Empire well, and I can see that certain persons would be interested in having him re-elected.

The man who is now surrounded in a suburb of Toulouse has been named as Mohammed Merah and it is very clear that he should have come to the attention of the French investigators for these killings earlier.

He was arrested in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2010. There are additional reports that he took the black scooter he used into a Yamaha dealership to have the GPS tracker disabled, and/or to have it repainted.

The man had also sought out a garage in Toulouse to have his Yamaha scooter repainted after the first two attacks.

[source : Raid on Toulouse shooting suspect, BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17446999, 21/03/2102]

You would think it would be standard police procedure that if a particular vehicle, for example a black scooter, had been used in a series of seriously violent crimes then owners of such vehicles in the area would have been investigated.

But it gets much worse.

Merah was a known violent criminal, with a record of violent crimes.

He is a known criminal in Toulouse where some of his crimes were violent, according to French newspaper Le Figaro.

[source : Raid on Toulouse shooting suspect, BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17456541, 21/03/2102]

And he was under surveillance by France's Secret Service DCRI for several years!

The French interior minister has revealed that the suspect "was followed for several years" by the DCRI, France's secret service. But he says there was no indication that he was preparing any criminal activity.

[source : Toulouse shootings: police arrest man and corner suspect in early swoop - live updates, The Guardian, 21/03/2102]

Sky News was also reporting this morning with its relentless coverage of the siege that the immigration and security questions are now beginning to dominate the election debate, in the media and in the public in general.

Just how this will affect the voting intentions of the French public is yet to be seen. But I am highly suspicious of the following;

1. Merah was a known violent criminal with a black scooter
2. he had already been under surveillance by the DCRI for several years (though what for is unclear, but to be under surveillance for that long implies to me that it was for something serious).
3. the Presidential election is just one month away and Sarkozy is, or was, expected to lose.
4. Merah claims to a member of al Qaeda, and we all know who controls them.

I am not stating that Sarkozy demanded that an al Qaeda stooge be ordered or persuaded to go on a bloody rampage, but somebody else may have to give Sarkozy the opportunity in the final weeks of the Presidential election to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

So I will end as I began.

The expected winner, as of yesterday, of the French Presidential election next month is the Socialist Francois Hollande.

As of yesterday...