Printemps is blowing up their prices!

I'm just copying and pasting a report that I think covers all the news. Basically, security found five sticks of dynamite in a bathroom in the world-famous Printemps Mall in Paris (right next to Lafayette Galleries).

Everybody was cleared out but dispite terrorist efforts... the French really didn't seem to care that much. WAY TO GO! I could imagine the scenario.
"There is a bomb? Well then take it out."
"We took it out."
"Is there another?"
"No."
"Then lets go back in, I'm finished with this cigarette anyway."

Check out Printemps: http://departmentstoreparis.printemps.com/
And live video from the rooftop... so beautiful on a clear day: http://departmentstoreparis.printemps.com/news/index.aspx?ArticleID=17780
And, the original article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/16/paris-explosives-department-store


Police find dynamite in Paris department store
Police in Paris today found five sticks of dynamite hidden in one of the city's best-known department stores, apparently planted there by a previously unknown group demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan.

The Printemps-Haussmann à Paris store, in the ninth arrondissement (district), was evacuated this morning and part of the street sealed off following a warning that explosives had been planted in the building. A police sniffer dog found five sticks of dynamite on the third floor of the men's section of the shop, the AFP news agency reported. Later, the French interior ministry said the explosives had no detonators and were therefore not primed to explode.

"As far as we know, these were not explosives intended to detonate," the interior minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie said. "We are still pursuing our inquiries."

The store, which had been packed with Christmas shoppers, was cleared after AFP received a letter from a group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front in this morning's post. The letter warned that several bombs had been left at the store. The letter claimed one device had been timed to explode in a third floor toilet tomorrow, and that the explosives would go off "if you do not send someone to intervene" before then. The group was demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan. "Send the message to your president that he must withdraw his troops from our country before the end of February 2009, or else we will take action in your capitalist department stores and this time without warning," the letter said.

AFP said it had received an anonymous phone call last Wednesday warning that a bomb had been left in an unspecified Printemps store. The chain's three Paris outlets were evacuated by police as a precaution. Today's discovery at the 45,000 square metre shop on Boulevard Haussmann, one of the best-known shopping streets in the French capital, caused relatively little disruption.

The store was cleared without panic and had reopened by midday.
Staff described how, between 11.30am and 12pm, they were told to evacuate the building. "I just left my vacuum cleaner and ran. I didn't have time to get my handbag or belongings, I was just thinking of survival," a cleaner working on the fifth floor said.

"I've never seen anything like it in over 20 years at the store. They didn't say what was going on. But the first thing you think of is a bomb. Of course you can't tell the customers that or people will panic."

A 19-year-old who gave her name as Noémie was working on a make-up counter on the ground floor. "The store was packed. People on the ground floor filed out quickly and quietly. But it was when security had to set off the alarm to clear the second floor and above that shoppers got agitated," she said. "When we heard the alarm, the stress kicked in and I started to feel scared. I know the security guards and they told me there were five bombs in there. You just try to keep calm."

The men's department, where the devices were found, is linked to the main store by a walkway and a small courtyard in which traders have Christmas stalls set up. "Just after 11am, I saw a big van pull up and police and dogs get out," Lea Keuvedjian, who runs a shoe stall, said. "We thought it was a joke initially, then we were told to evacuate and we left our stalls and ran."

Despite the confusion, Marie Mantoux, a Parisian midwife, waited at the front of the police cordon to be allowed into the store. "I've got a Printemps advantage card so I don't want to go anywhere else," she said. "And you can't give in to fear, or you wouldn't go anywhere and the city would shut down. France hasn't done enough to help the civilians of Afghanistan. Maybe that's what this is about."

The discovery of the dynamite is, however, a major concern for the French security services. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is a strong supporter of western involvement in Afghanistan, and this year sent an extra 700 troops to the country, increasing the French contingent to 2,600.

Public support for French involvement dropped sharply in August when the country's forces lost 10 men in a Taliban ambush, described as the worst French military setback in 25 years.