Georges Dray: Police Commandos

Mohamed Merah Dept: In the drab Toulouse suburbs where gunman Mohamed Merah killed seven people before being cut down by police commandos, the talk is more of bubbling tensions between ethnic and religious communities and how solutions are nowhere in sight, according to Vancouver Sun. "Politicians in France love to talk about harmony, how there are no communities and everybody lives together," said Georges Dray, 72, a retired Jewish bar owner who came to Toulouse in the wave of French settlers who left former colony Algeria on its independence in 1962 and in the aftermath of a killing ram-page that shocked the nation, France's Paris-based politicians and national media are deep in debate about its impact on the upcoming presidential election and the need for tighter security. The gap is not just between the capital to the north and Toulouse in the southwest. In the gritty outskirts of Paris, within sight of the Eiffel Tower, an "us and them" mentality still haunts the streets rocked by immigrant riots in 2005. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.