S&S - Security is tight in Strasbourg for NATO summit. Strasbourg tightly regulates access during NATO event.

Stars and Stripes

Security is tight in Strasbourg for NATO summit


Strasbourg tightly regulates access during NATO event


By Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes

Mideast edition, Saturday, April 4, 2009

Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes
Police line the route that the motorcades of U.S. President Barack Obama and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France traveled down following their meeting in Strasbourg on Friday morning. Much of the eastern French city was blocked off for security reasons, and parking on many of the city streets has been forbidden since Monday. On Saturday NATO leaders are to meet in the city.


Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes
A worker helps raise the U.S. flag in front of the Palais de la Musique et des Congres in Strasbourg, France, where the North Atlantic Council meeting will take place Saturday.

Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes
The kitchen staff looks out the windows of the 15th-century Maison Kammerzell on Strasbourg, France's cathedral square, hoping to catch a glimpse of U.S. President Barack Obama and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, following their meeting at the Rohan Palace on Friday morning. The crowd lining the square only got to see the presidents' motorcades roll by.

STRASBOURG, France — For the last day or so, the city center of the Alsatian capital in northeastern France has been, to borrow a military term, in lockdown mode.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Since the summit is occurring in two countries — France and Germany — the staging of the event has been, in the words of a State Department spokesperson, "a logistical nightmare." Aside from the ever-present worry of a terrorist attack, both European hosts have acted in concert to keep anarchists somewhat in check.

Following the G-20 summit in London, President Barack Obama arrived Friday in Strasbourg for discussions with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and a town hall meeting afterward. Obama then met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and later, NATO leaders gathered in nearby Baden-Baden, Germany, for a working dinner."