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Power Security The Military

Paris Terror Spurs Plan For Military Zones Around Nuclear Plants 148

Posted by Soulskill from the also-no-toothpaste-allowed dept.
mdsolar sends this report from Bloomberg: Lawmakers in France want to create military zones around its 58 atomic reactors to boost security after this month's Paris terror attacks and almost two dozen mystery drone flights over nuclear plants that have baffled authorities.

"There's a legal void that needs to be plugged," said Claude de Ganay, the opposition member of the National Assembly spearheading legislation to be considered by parliament on Feb. 5. The proposals would classify atomic energy sites as "highly sensitive military zones" under the control of the Ministry of Defense, according to an outline provided by de Ganay.
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Paris Terror Spurs Plan For Military Zones Around Nuclear Plants More

Paris Terror Spurs Plan For Military Zones Around Nuclear Plants

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  • Domestic war (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What he's proposing there is domestic war against an undefined enemy. Friendly fire in this case is a dumb ass soldier shooting some critical safety system in the nuclear plant.

    Get a grip, and be grown up politicians and not chicken littles.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Turn every site into a mini Maginot Line or fortified (hérisson) camp like at Dien Bien Phu.
      How big to make the zone? 4,000-metre ~4,400 yd radius?

      • Re:Domestic war (Score:4, Informative)

        by cold fjord ( 826450 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @04:26AM (#48863607)

        The Maginot Line was largely successful in repelling direct assault. German forces were forced to go around it in the interests of time.
        The meaningful difference between Dien Bien Phu and the nuclear plants is the possibility of rapid response by external forces to assist the garrison, and this time la Légion étrangère [legion-etrangere.com] would be available for intervention rather than invested, as would the la Gendarmerie nationale [interieur.gouv.fr].

        Multiple zones are needed, including zone de sécurité, zone d'exclusion.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          Re: "German forces were forced to go around it in the interests of time."
          Germany had the skills and planners to ensure the Maginot Line was useless. Germany went around and over forts.
          Re "Multiple zones are needed, including zone de sécurité, zone d'exclusion."
          East Germany tried that for the Berlin Wall and its different restricted boarder zones. People still made it over, under and escaped a massive set of complex local controls and a real wall with all its complexity.
          All France can do now is
          • Seems to me they just don't understand why people are flying drones over nuclear reactors and wanna be able to shoot down those drones, just in case it's a bunch of criminals.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by MrKaos ( 858439 )

              Seems to me they just don't understand why people are flying drones over nuclear reactors and wanna be able to shoot down those drones, just in case it's a bunch of criminals.

              They may also want to close down the possibility of people being able to monitor the radioactive emmissions by using drones to gather samples or carry detection equipment of some kind.

              Drones may be annoying but they are also incredibly useful devices.

              • So, are the regulators that monitor emissions going to fly in random drones unannounced? Presumably they would at least let the plant operators know they're coming...

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by MrKaos ( 858439 )

                  So, are the regulators that monitor emissions going to fly in random drones unannounced? Presumably they would at least let the plant operators know they're coming...

                  No. What I mean is that they could be closing down the possibility that a civilian third party, unrelated to either the operators, the regulators or any other officially sanctioned government operator, could fly drones over a Nuclear power plant to gather data, of any kind, related to the emissions of operational French Nuclear reactors.

                  I don't think that is an unreasonable supposition.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Chrisq ( 894406 )

      What he's proposing there is domestic war against an undefined enemy.

      The problem is that it is islamaphobic to define the enemy. So we have a situation where Jewsih schools and synagogues are surrounded by police while Muslims go where they want, and Jews thinking about leaving France when Muslims feel welcome to stay and undermine the society. Obviously in both cases it should be the other way round.

      • Re:Domestic war (Score:5, Insightful)

        by prefec2 ( 875483 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @04:23AM (#48863595)

        No it is not. However, most people are unable to distinguish between islamists, islamistic terrorists and normal muslims. While the first and second make and ideology out of their religion, the third (most muslims) do not. If you want to fight the problem then you have first to understand the problem. The problem is that people become fanatics and try to use force to push their ideology onto you. So why do people become fanatics? We had our share of fanatics in Europe in context of different ideologies. For example, the Red Army Fraction (RAF) in Germany and Basque terrorists. The RAF was fought with police methods and their support was diminished by starting a dialog with those people who sympathized with them. Resulting in an integration and dialog. If this dialog had been established in the beginning , the radicalization would not have taken place at all. Most of those terrorists where from religious (Christian) background and loved peace. However, they felt that the system was oppressive and must be overthrown. The felt helpless and radicalized. We know from research that similar processes cause radicalization of people into islamists. War is never a good solution, if you want to reduce violence.

        • However, most people are unable to distinguish between islamists, islamistic terrorists and normal muslims.

          So how do you do that, hmmm? It's already been established that gender and age have no bearing on this equation, nor does citizenship or ancestral background, or even what country you were born in, so what's your magic formula?

        • There is a problem. Why have Muslim nations not removed clerics who preach that Christians must die from their pulpits? Why are text books in Muslim schools allowed to teach hatred of Christians and Jews? Normal Muslims and governments in the Arab regions need to remove radicals from positions of influence. When these folks are called to their Mosques why are they not instructed that they must love Jews and Christians and not apply religious laws to people outside of Islam? To my eye it seems t
      • The problem is not the it is islamophobic to define the enemy. Out of more than 6 million Moslems only three committed attacks, which is less than 0.000 5 %o of the Moslem population. Moreover, such shooters where in association with a foreign militant group; AFAIK there is no militant group of French Moslems nor are such attacks condoned by any representative of Moslem groups in France. Therefore, it would be too immature to identify Moslems as the enemy.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by quenda ( 644621 )

          which is less than 0.000 5 %o of the Moslem population.

          Its been a while since the mass-riots, but the ghettos are still simmering and violence is widespread. The problems are much, much bigger than 3 gunmen.

    • You're actually expecting the French to not be their usual passionate selves as much in this case as in any other case? And of course you expect politicians from any country at all to not have knee-jerk reactions to extreme circumstances? Come on, don't be naive.

      On a lighter note: Don't know if anyone else noticed it, but I raised an eyebrow and quirked up a corner of my mouth over the use of the word 'atomic' in the summary; did we get transported back to 1945 or something while I was sleeping?

    • The safety systems are protected by a meter of concrete. Even an RPG / small mortar couldn't scratch that thick a skin.
      It's not by chance that so far no real terrorists tried to attack / hijack a nuclear plant. It's not 1% as good a terrorist target as the anti nuclear paranoids state.

  • Police (Score:3, Interesting)

    by prefec2 ( 875483 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @04:06AM (#48863551)

    Fighting local terror is a police task. They are trained for that. They normally don't shoot people, they try to apprehend them. It would be a total disaster if we would think that we are on war with something. True the US is at war with all number of problems, like drugs, terror, violence you name it, but that is not a solving strategy. Beside the will of "security people" we should fight terrorists with good police work and we should address the core issues which trigger people to become terrorists. One key ingredient for radicalization (which is a requirement to become a terrorist of any kind) is a feeling of powerlessness and the feeling of lack of communication. The latter includes that nobody really listens to you. It is not enough when you are allowed to post or say anything, as long as no one is really engaging in a personal discussion (not debate) then there is no real communication in terms of the problems the people have. Also people get frustrated and angry, because what ever they do they are not getting anywhere. For instance in Germany or France it is harder to get an apprenticeship training position if you have a foreign name, especially if it sounds Turkish or Arabic. It is worse with small companies than with bigger ones and it is worse if you are male. In addition your school grades are similar effected (males) when you have a foreign name or if you have a name which is typical associated with low income (e.g. Kevin in Germany).

    • Re:Police (Score:5, Insightful)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @06:19AM (#48863877)

      we should address the core issues which trigger people to become terrorists.

      What if one of the "core issues" is a substantial difference in cultural values?

      Immigrants show up with cultural values completely at odds with the dominant culture and move into self-isolated communities. The dominant culture rejects the immigrants' value system, which combined with the isolation of a separate community, seems to contribute to the sense of alienation and powerlessness. Some, rather than choosing assimilation, instead choose a kind of victim mindset, seeing the rejection of their values as a kind of active oppression and become ripe for radicalization.

      None of this is to say that the dominant culture may have in fact engaged in some actual good old-fashioned discrimination, but labeling all of the dominant cultures rejection of the immigrant's culture seems wrong when things like separation of religion and state, women's equality or concepts like blasphemy are in play.

      I just don't know how you "fix" conflicts like this.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by swb ( 14022 )

          Which is why I said "sense of powerlessness" -- I don't know that anyone is ever totally powerless, outside of maybe some kind of prison inmate in a 24-hour solitary confnement situation.

          Obviously a member of a more or less free society can project physical power through some kind of violence (guns, bombs, going batshit nuts with a knife in a crowd, even).

          But the belief that one lacks the kind of conceptual power to shape their future or influence their larger environment is what I was getting at. And usua

          • Re:Police (Score:4, Insightful)

            by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @09:02AM (#48864535) Homepage Journal

            As one example, suppressing women seems to cut off half your source of economic power, intellectual innovation and inhibits social values that even traditionally patriarchical cultures like Christianity seem to have embraced.

            "seem to". Christianity is a whole lot less homogenized than Islam, which itself does have distinctions. Many Christian sects (I'm looking at you, Catholics) think women are fine as long as they do as they're told and don't step out of line. But some are still outright oppressing them, like the Amish. Then again, their whole culture is about oppression. Their religion can't survive without it. And indeed, the Amish suppress their people, and their women especially.

            Most so-called Christians aren't particularly religious, especially if you judge them by their actions — the only valid way to judge anyone. They pick and choose freely from their holy book and ignore all the parts they don't like. Their religion isn't mandatorily theocratic, and most of them don't have doctrine that requires them to try to convert people all of the time. But more importantly, the western world has already collectively considered making it the law, and rejected it. Now we're going to have to go through that process all over again with Islam. The sad part is, we've been through this already, and these primitive screwheads want us to go through it all again. But those few of us who remember history have little stomach for it. Crusades, Inquisition, we just don't want to mix our religion and our law, thank you very much. And yes, anyone who does is seriously primitive, like centuries out of date primitive, and so is their faith.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by swb ( 14022 )

              "seem to". Christianity is a whole lot less homogenized than Islam, which itself does have distinctions.

              The funny thing with Islam is that it is, AFAIK, less centralized than Christianity, whose primary denominations (at least by membership) tend to belong to larger governing bodies who control doctrine, ordination, such as the Catholic church, the Lutheran synods, the Anglican Communion, and the branches of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Despite it's apparent schismatic nature, Christianity has a lot of

              • This has been one of the major problems with Islamic Fundamentalism -- you can't go to the Islamic pope and say tone it down. Anybody can grow a beard, grab a Koran, claim to be an Imam and try to be more conservative than the guy next door who he labels an infidel.

                Well, that's true of Christianity too. Anybody can start their own church, if they can come up with some followers and a mailing address.

                Christian belief tends to be more personal and its edicts begin -- and end -- with its members, and they don't really have explicit civil authority.

                And that's why this is basically a solved problem with Christianity today, and why I'm less worried about it than Islam. Not a fan by any means, but not actively concerned.

                I don't want to discriminate against anybody, but I don't want to be discriminated against either. So I'm going to continue to oppose theocracy wherever I see it — as well as any religion which loo

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I just don't know how you "fix" conflicts like this.

        Possibly to restrict immigration such that the percentage of immigrants remains low enough to make integration into our own culture possible.

        If those who come to our countries do not like our culture, they are free to leave.

    • Fighting local terror is a police task. They are trained for that.

      European police is generally not trained to deal with AKs and RPGs. The cop that was executed in Paris wasn't even armed. This is why France has GIGN.

      Beside the will of "security people" we should fight terrorists with good police work and we should address the core issues which trigger people to become terrorists. One key ingredient for radicalization (which is a requirement to become a terrorist of any kind) is a feeling of powerlessness and the feeling of lack of communication. The latter includes that nobody really listens to you.

      So, you have deep insights into french society, do you? Or is this just your normalcy bias speaking?
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... [wikipedia.org]
      There has been a lot of research into what makes someone turn to terrorism. Poverty, alienation, feelings of powerlessness etc are not key, it's the presence of a charismatic leader. Just look at Marseille, poor, over 40% muslim

  • Now it doesn't seem to have been such a good idea to put all those reactors on the border of the country, where people can cross over without presenting any papers. (Schengen)
    For lots of them, drones can be easily operated from neighboring countries.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Yoda222 ( 943886 )
      If you put it in the center of the country, people can also come without presenting any papers from all directions.

  • Call it an "enhanced security zone" staffed by well-trained, well-armed civilians with broad arrest- and secret-court prosecutorial powers which report to a newly-created cabinet level post. How do you say "Department of homeland nuclear security" in French?

    --
    Disclaimer: This is supposed to be funny. Anything that amounts to a huge government power-grab at the expense of its citizens' and legal residents' basic freedoms whether it's called a military force or a "civilian" force scares me and it should sc

  • Lets say you've a memory more than a week and you remember Fukushima and Chernobyl and then want to protest Nuclear Energy for safety reasons, and/or you want different green energy.

    Now you're arrested, and no safety of civilian courts. FUN!

  • The US should also have a sizable military force surrounding our reactors. It is one way that terrorists could cause major harm that persists for centuries. Some of the terror loonies are sick enough to try to put a reactor into meltdown. And the retaliation from the US against nations known to harbor terrorists would be severe and perhaps nuclear in nature. My premiss is that terrorism can only harm Islam and followers of Islam. They probably know that but reason that there is a line in the sand

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