Miss ... Ms ... Mr ... ?

Miss … Ms … Mr … ?

The French Air Force has refused to acknowledge the gender change from male to female of one of their non-commissioned officers.

Fifteen years ago Thierry Ravisé-Giard, then aged 21, joined the Air Force.

Two years ago he returned from a long sick leave and he was no longer one of the guys, but one of the girls.

Thierry had had sex-change treatment and had become Delphine.

The Air Force, not knowing what to do with her, did let her remain in the force, but had transferred her to another unit.

But now, finally the Air Force has rejected her gender change and she’s Thierry again, and she’s back on sick leave.

She now plans to take the Air Force to court. In fact, to take the French State to court because the State also refuses to acknowledge the gender change.

This comes in the same week that a lesbian couple went to court here to be allowed to adopt a child. They won their case.

I wonder why Thierry chose the name Delphine. I would have called myself … Marilyn …

Topics of conversation in France ...

The Poppy


What are the French talking about?

Mostly about the Euromillions lottery draw of this Friday of €15 million (23 million dollars/14 million pounds) and of the French super lottery draw also on Friday (the 13th) of €13 million (20 million dollars/12 million pounds). Well, one can dream can’t one.

Then also about the France v South Africa rugby match also on Friday. The Springboks (the Boks) are World Champions and it is going to be tough for the French Cocks to beat them. In fact, they won’t beat them. As I was born and brought up in South Africa it is natural for me to be a rugby fan, so I can tell you that the Cocks won’t beat the Boks, they can’t, they’ve not been playing well this season.

There are sad topics of conversation too.

Like the story of little Youres, a black-haired, dark-eyed four-year-old. Two and a half weeks ago, on October 25, he disappeared from his home in Comines in Belgium, but on the Belgium/French border, so that France became involved in the search for him.

He ran from home in the middle of the night, lightly dressed and barefoot, because his parents were having a fist fight. Probably wanted to protect his mother, he stepped between her and his father and got hit too.

His little body has now been found in a river close to his home. An autopsy will determine whether he was sexually molested. I say that he was not. This little boy ran and ran and got lost and fell into the river and drowned. You can imagine how frightened he must have been, and then cold and perhaps hungry too. Well, I know what I will do with the parents.

Another topic of conversation is about how the French very nearly made a bad faux pas this morning.

It is November 11, the day that World War One ended (91 years ago this year) and on this day the French president always lays a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysées.

This year, for the first time, a German Chancellor - Angela Merkel – has been invited to attend.

Therefore, the German national anthem had to be played along with the French one.

But one of those responsible for the arrangements had not heard that the old Deutschland Uber Alles was no longer Germany’s national anthem. Since the reunification of the two Germanies, the new German anthem has been the Deutschlandlied (Song of Germany), but already after the end of World War Two the old Deutschland Uber Alles had been modified. The then Chancellor (Adenhauer) had those parts that reminded all of Hitler and the Nazis were dropped from the anthem. But today France was going to play the old one. Fortunately, someone noticed the error and it was corrected.

But this morning, seeing Merkel with Sarkozy, each laying a wreath, I recalled this joke.

Why are the Paris boulevards lined with trees? Because the German army likes marching in the shade.

France and German are as thick as thieves these days but I don’t think that the French have forgotten the two world wars and what the Germans have done to them.

They seek him here ... they seek him there ... they seek him everywhere ...

Photo: Tony Musulin

Further to my blog entry of yesterday - His Christmas Shopping List is Taken Care Of - the name of the security van’s robber is Tony Musulin. He is 39, unmarried, and hails from the ex-Yugoslavia. He’s been with Loomis for 10 years and far from being the penniless guy of first reports, he has several bank accounts (the money from all he had withdrawn last Friday), and is a director of a real estate firm with a capital of €230,000. That’s about $342,000 or £205,000. He was also the owner of a Ferrari which he had reported stolen in April.

Writers of crime, true or fiction, have noses for this kind of thing, and I therefore say that this man was a lone operator. And that he is already very far from France.

The banknotes which he and his two colleagues had just collected from the Banque de France were in 39 bags, and the amount was a little over 11 million Euros - actually 11.6 million.

His Christmas shopping list is taken care of ...

Photo: A 500-Euro note.

This is a story movies are made of.

It was an ordinary Thursday in November – Nov 5. The town was Lyon, eastern France. It was 10 in the morning.

No one these days takes much notice of a security van pulling up outside a bank. Therefore, no one stopped to look at the two guys in uniform and with their guns drawn, who stepped from a Loomis security van. And no one also bothered to look at the young man, also in uniform, who remained sitting behind the wheel.

The two security guards were only gone for a few minutes, but on their return to the van ... well ... it was not there where they had left it! Gone too was their colleague. And no blood on the ground; not even some shattered glass.

The two security guards instantly raised the alarm and at first it was thought that the security van had been hijacked, the driver with it. Maybe even that he was lying dead somewhere.

But no, the driver had absconded with the security van and with its load of Euro banknotes to the amount of €11 million. That’s approximately $16.4 million or £10 million.

And he is nowhere to be found.

Police believe that the young man who they have not named but who is 39 years old, had carefully planned this robbery. He had cleared out his bank account. He had removed all personal objects and documents from his rented apartment. And he had even given the apartment a thorough cleaning.

According to colleagues, he was a rather taciturn individual who had often complained about the low wages they were being paid. One colleague told journalists that the young man had told him that one day he was going to make Loomis pay for their meanness.

Now, he has done so.

Did he have accomplices? The police do not yet know, but they found the security van abandoned beside a railway line in an isolated area of Lyon.

Not that I’ve ever seen €11 million in one place, but I think that it will take one man rather a long time to get such a lot of money from one vehicle to another, and that he must have had help. But then also, when one is motivated ...

At 11 million Euro this is France's biggest security van robbery ever. The previous record was 10 million Euro and then it was a gang of 10 robbers who had used explosives.