It’s hard to say.

On the one hand, I was told gendarme presence has been more prominent ever since the Paris attacks. I never went to Paris until this year, so I have no point of reference.

On the other, when I was there and got a little lost walking the Champs Elysées, I accidentally walked past a lunch meeting of General Assembly members at a Michelin Star restaurant without a problem. I definitely got stared at by security detail and anyone taking a smoke break, but the sidewalk was apparently free real estate despite the VIPs being literal feet away. And the armed police were stationed around the corner, which I thought was weird.

It was a large enough presence that I went back to my relative’s home early one day because they were swarming the area around Saint Michel during rush hour; it looked like I was about to get caught in some kind of police action and my French was not strong enough to find myself in that situation.

My optimistic guess is that, much like how Q said the military would be working to never let another 9/11 happen, the French military is doing the same thing. And that, given the back and forth gendarme traffic near the main government buildings, maybe things are happening behind the scenes that we can’t see.

My pessimistic guess, which happens when you know no one in unarmed Paris has a chance against a bunch of cops with machine guns, is that they’re maintaining control over everyone à la a CCP show of force. I thought the normies here were asleep, but France was a whole different level. It’s like you can slap Liberté Égalité Fraternité on everything and no one questions if you’re selling them a raw deal.