Bomb in Paris Department Store leaves secular godless French baffled—how much more coddling do these terrorists need?

A group calling itself the "Afghan Revolutionary Front" called up the AFP news agency and announced that it had planted explosives in Printemps, one of Paris' largest department stores. "Send the message to your president that he needs to withdraw his troops from our country (Afghanistan) before the end of February 2009, or else we will act again in your capitalist department stores, and this time with no warning." That's the sort of message the French can usually get behind—down with your capitalist department stores!—but not when there are Christmas baguettes to buy!

Of course the terrorists, being French, failed at instilling much terror.

“For the moment, we have found sticks of dynamite in just one location,” Ms. Alliot-Marie told reporters. She said that the kind of dynamite found was “relatively old.”

Outside Printemps, there was not panic but frustration among shoppers and tourists huddled outside and impatient to resume their shopping.

“Well, I’ll just have to come back later, then,” said Eleanor Deshayes, 29, when informed that the department store had been evacuated due to a bomb alert.

The French usually appreciate a good bit of violent political theater, but this didn't even end in a peasant, worker, or student revolt, and that warning was hardly a gnomic situationist slogan scrawled on a wall, right?

Sheesh, France, get your War on Christmas right.

[Photo: AFP/Getty]