Roller Cops Against Tibet

Some of you have perhaps already heard about the massive demonstrations in Paris today during the Olympic Torch relay. There were also counter demonstrations by pro-Chinese supporters as well. This naturally led to a few clashes at various points between the Tibetan/anti-China supporters and the pro-China demonstrators.

The governmental response to the torch visit was to treat it as if it were a visiting head of state. This naturally required roller cops. I know these demonstrations were a serious matter. Their seriousness is exactly why I bring this up in the first place. Why on earth do you surround the torch with roller cops? Honestly, what can they do? Unless they have an amazing braking or locking device on the skates they have absolutely no leverage when engaging a subject and are thus worthless. They obviously had plenty of other people protecting the flame on foot, as you can see here:



It still leaves me wondering who does the security planning here. There were several occasions when protesters were within inches of the flame bearer before they were taken down. Eventually the decision was reached that it would be better to put the flame on a bus and surround it with roller cops for the duration of the journey to Stade Charlety.

Naturally I don't want to point fingers and make accusations but it seems as if there was some governmental collusion or at the very least acquiescence with the demonstrators. Part of me hopes that this is the case, otherwise it'd be a bit worrisome to know that demonstrators could easily unfurl banners and flags like the one below on the walls of City Hall, the Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame. (As you will notice, the French still use the Postal Map Romanization method for Chinese cities, so Beijing is still known as Peking here)



I suppose the real question is: what is more disturbing as a resident? The ability of demonstrators to infiltrate national monuments or the presence of roller cops as guardians of your safety?