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Paris Louvre Museum Closes as Staff Protests Epidemic of Pickpocketing
TIME ^ | 04/11/2013 | By Olivia B. Waxman

Posted on 04/11/2013 2:58:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

The world’s most visited art museum is dealing with an influx of unwelcome visitors.

A staff walkout over the rise of pickpockets forced the Louvre in Paris to shut its doors Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reports.

Workers say that thieves have been showing up at the museum in gangs of up to 30 — primarily made up of young Eastern Europeans — and are responsible for incidents of “spitting, insults, threats” and striking employees and visitors.

Staffers “come to work afraid because they find themselves confronted with organized groups of pickpockets who are increasingly aggressive and which include children, who get into the museum free and even when taken in for questioning by police, come back a few days later,” Christelle Guyader, a representative for the network of trade unions Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques (SUD), told the AFP.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsfeed.time.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: france; louvre; museum; pickpocket
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To: roostercashews

I guess the press can’t say gypsies, instead they have to use “east Europeans”. LOL

A bunch of gypsies tried to take my wallet in a Barcelona subway. I grabbed one of them and held him against the train until someone gave me the wallet back. I checked the wallet as they were going away and noticed all the credit cards were there but the 20 or so Euros were gone. So I grabbed the nearest one and made them give me back the money. Later that day I realized I should have made them give me back extra money! oh well. I had so much fun the next few times I was in Europe I trolled through dark streets trying to repeat this to no avail.


21 posted on 04/11/2013 4:01:54 PM PDT by RadiationRomeo (Step into my mind and glimpse the madness that is me)
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To: SeekAndFind

I’ve been to Paris many times since I work for a French company. I have only been accosted by a pickpocket once.

The event occurred when I stupidly attempted to negotiate the subway with luggage with both hands full. RULE 1: Always have one hand free!

Fortunately, I recognized the attack when one guy rolled a coin on the floor impeding my path right after I entered the coach. I immediately dropped my bags and pushed the guy down the guy in front. I then slapped my hand OVER the hand in my back pocket. I did not release until I was yelling so that everyone would be watching as the guy removed his hand, empty. I turned on the guy behind me and he tried to act innocent. I then pushed him out of the car by popping him in the chest with both hands just before the doors closed. A non-uniformed policeman with a hand radio ran up and asked me if I was O.K through the window before the train pulled away. I told him I had everything. Meanwhile, my son watched the guy in front exit the car from another door.

Aside from that, I had not been accosted in Paris. Most of the thefts reported by my colleagues have occurred in Milan. One guy I was traveling with in Milan was robbed three times in one trip over a four week period!


22 posted on 04/11/2013 4:02:02 PM PDT by the_Watchman
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To: Jmouse007

Yeah, I curse the high command to this very day from varying from the Moltke’s plan. It would have worked. They should have simply bypassed the Belgian forts. Oh well, what they couldn’t take my gun they took by checkbook. Tee hee!


23 posted on 04/11/2013 4:07:51 PM PDT by TheRhinelander
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To: TheRhinelander

*by


24 posted on 04/11/2013 4:08:37 PM PDT by TheRhinelander
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To: SeekAndFind

French police must be going soft, seriously soft. IIRC, they were known as mean when crossed, and French prisons were deliberately made barely survivable.

Oh, I remember! Rails were installed on all French police station stairways, which reduced the number of suspects falling down the stairs (sometimes repeatedly).


25 posted on 04/11/2013 4:09:30 PM PDT by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is necessary to examine principles."..)
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To: GladesGuru

I saw a video a few years back, maybe on “60 minutes”. They showed a uniformed French cop literally kicking a Gypsy off a train or maybe it was a subway. I mean he put his boot right on the guys ass.


26 posted on 04/11/2013 4:21:59 PM PDT by yarddog (Truth, Justice, and what was once the American Way.)
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To: RadiationRomeo

A bunch of gypsies tried to take my wallet in a Barcelona subway. I grabbed one of them and held him against the train until someone gave me the wallet back. I checked the wallet as they were going away and noticed all the credit cards were there but the 20 or so Euros were gone. So I grabbed the nearest one and made them give me back the money. Later that day I realized I should have made them give me back extra money! oh well. I had so much fun the next few times I was in Europe I trolled through dark streets trying to repeat this to no avail.


You are lucky none of them threatened you with a knife when you grabbed one of them.


27 posted on 04/11/2013 4:22:25 PM PDT by aviator (Armored Pest Control)
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To: Blue Ink

I’ve been to France over 60 times in my life, with only 1 bad experience.


28 posted on 04/11/2013 4:31:29 PM PDT by ImaGraftedBranch (...By reading this, you've collapsed my wave function. Thanks.)
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To: Mushroom Gravy

Thank you for pointing this out. The French do *not* hate Americans.


29 posted on 04/11/2013 4:58:01 PM PDT by dinodino
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To: SeekAndFind

“Young eastern Europeans” - code for Amish?


30 posted on 04/11/2013 5:02:05 PM PDT by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
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To: SeekAndFind
I have been to Paris twice and both times had a wonderful time. During my first trip in 1972 I did find some Frenchmen not having anything good to say about Americans. However, I speak French and that changed everything. I had some fun conversations in local bistros and found the French to be warm and welcoming. My second trip in 2006 was also enjoyable and I found that far more ordinary people spoke quite good English, however speaking reasonably good French opens lots of doors.

On occasion I run across French speaking tourists in this country. I feel sorry for them as many Americans treat them very poorly and very few Americans have any reasonable knowledge of any foreign language let alone French. I go out of my way to speak to them in French and make them feel welcome in my country.

31 posted on 04/11/2013 5:02:40 PM PDT by The Great RJ
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To: Jmouse007
Had to change planes at de Gaulle one vacation, each way, and always ended up worse off, seat-wise. Not France's problem...

However, in rushing off one plane to find the gate for our final leg home, the handful of uniformed people we tried to ask in English shrugged with Gallic indifference. Granted, I could have thought to remember enough of my HS French to utter "gat un-quatre" or whatever it was.

Still...

32 posted on 04/11/2013 5:10:10 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: SeekAndFind

All European cities have been injected with tens of millions of Third worlders. Most of the cities in England now have non-British majorities. This is all deliberate policy by the Globalists to dilute and displace the native European populations and replace them with a people unable and unwilling to resist their planned demolition of Western Civilization.


33 posted on 04/11/2013 5:29:53 PM PDT by Count of Monte Fisto
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To: Count of Monte Fisto

Gypsies in Roma were the worst, cried, wailed when the Caribinieriwould roust em. Only got picked oncein all my voyages, lil rats in Romania, front pocket too.


34 posted on 04/11/2013 5:35:44 PM PDT by wxgesr (I want to be the first person to surf on another planet.)
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To: Some Fat Guy in L.A.

Just shoot them; it’ll end very quickly.


35 posted on 04/11/2013 5:35:54 PM PDT by Carriage Hill (The most insidious power the news media has, is the power to ignore.)
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