PARIS (Sputnik) — A larger military presence in the streets and on public transport in France provides a psychological effect, reassuring people, rather than an actual boost to security, Philippe Goncalves, the president of the Haute-Marne department branch and coordinator at General Federation of Transport at the CFTC labor union, told Sputnik.
Last week, French media obtained an internal note by the command of the French National police, warning that public transport was particularly vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
"The main side of this security is psychological, it’s the effect it has on the inhabitants or travellers, reassured by the presence of the military. I am not sure that they are capable of shooting the gun fast enough, they are not trained for that," Goncalves said.
"You put three officers of Suge [General Surveillance] in the train, they are in the head of the train and anybody can attack people with a knife or shoot Kalashnikov in the coach in the other part of the train. Their efficiency is really hard to measure, we enter into subjectivity here," Gonclaves noted.
He added that public transport faced the same security challenges as any other venue, including a difficulty in tracing isolated individuals to prevent attacks.
Earlier, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said that the level of terror threat in France remains "at a very high level".
France has been under the state of emergency since it was declared on November 14, 2015 following the terror attacks in Saint-Denis and in Paris, when the Bataclan theater was seized by terrorists. Over 100 people died in the attacks, and more than 400 were injured then.
