No .. not the crowd .. it's over by the wall and in the street in front of the tanks .. about 310 - 315 into the video
There are two men .. one is wearing an orange/red shirt
The French shot warning shots at the two .. and then shortly afterward ... the shooting really got going
It looks to me that is what stated it .. but I can't tell if the guys were armed or not
And thank you for helping get the screen cap
The still picture makes it look like a pretty big crowd. anyone got an estimate on the number of people?
Anyone have an estimate on the number of French troops?
What was the crowd's actions towards the french troops? Were they advancing on them, throwing rocks at them?
The sad thing is,, depending upon their orders, those troops might not have had a lot of choice.
I dealt with huge crowds like that in Somalia and they can be tremendously destructive
If you're a French platoon leader and you've orders to stop rioters or protests (which can easily turn into riots) and you have no non lethal options (Like tear gas or pepper spray). How exactly do you stop an advancing crowd of hundreds or thousands with your 40-50 troops?
After warning shots fail, you're options are pretty limited
You absolutely DO NOT EVER let a crowd that outnumbers you like that get within touching distance of your people.
Your soldiers would get dragged down and torn limb from limb
There's a lot we don't know about what happened here.
People say the video looks bad - welcome to duty in the third world (particularly in Africa). I came very close to having to make a call like that myself - fortunately reinforcements arrived in time
In spite of my distatse for their government - I have no beef with the French units I have served beside.
Their officers were professional and their troops proficient
Their government is as much of an embarrassment to them as ours was to us during the Clinton years
There's a lot here that we don't know. But having faced a few riots in Africa myself, I'll withold judgement.
All the best
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