Bad news

When I drove my first departing guests to the airport this morning I was conscious of a significantly larger police presence than usual - in fact it made me feel very self-conscious - as I pulled up in the drop-off point there must have been eight different members of France's police forces (local, departmental and national) watching me - believe me eight is a lot for Carcassonne airport, plus the others parked on all the approach roads too. Something was obviously going on.

We had spent Sunday working away on Denis' apartment and then preparing dinner for our guests. Two unusual things happened - firstly, as I was waiting to start recording the final of Euro 2008, I just caught the end of an article on the French national news that was about Carcassonne - but I missed what it was about. Secondly, during dinner later that evening, we heard a plane go over on final approach to the airport - definitely not usual for that time of night. Both were remarked upon and then forgotten about.

When I got back from the airport, Debrah had an email from her mother asking about the shooting incident! A bit of internet news trawling and it all became apparent and made sense. The news item was reporting the shooting incident at the barracks, the late plane was the minister of defence arriving and the police presence this morning was for the arrival of President Sarkozy, here to visit the wounded in hospital. By the time I took my second departees to the airport at lunchtime, his jet was roaring back down the runway and off to Toulouse, where two of the seriously injured child victims were in hospital.

Monday is always quiet, but the whole town seemed more subdued than usual today - not surpising really. It was a bit of a shock that the, up until late yesterday afternoon, successful 3rd Parachute regiment open weekend should end with 17 civilians being shot - how live rounds found their way into the gun instead of the blanks that should have been there for the demonstration is the big talking point - anyone with any knowledge of these things has told me that you can't mistake the two, especially if you have eight years experience as the soldier in question did. Let's hope they can get to the bottom of it very quickly. It is a miracle that, so far, no-one has died of their wounds.

A sad day for Carcassonne.