Comment on Europeans learn to live with — and adapt to — terror attacks

The steady stream of attacks on centers of daily life have drawn pledges from Europeans not to let terrorists change how they live, but in ways large and small they already have. Tensions are high enough in central Paris that on Thursday the quick-response police unit reacted to a witness' phone call about a man wearing a sidearm by tackling him on the street, only to learn that he was a ranking member of the anti-terrorism squad, according to French media. Paris is quickly ramping up its own camera system, to the point where authorities were able this week to track the minute-by-minute path of the man who tried to attack a Champs-Elysee gendarme patrol until the moment he rammed their vehicle. Both Britain and France have installed barriers around airports, train stations and other public buildings in recent years. Since the Westminster bridge attack in March, however, talks are underway to install even more barriers on bridges and around crowded places such as London's Borough Market, where three attackers this month went on a stabbing rampage after crashing their vehicle on a busy street not far from London Bridge. After suicide bombers in 2005 struck trains and buses during a busy London morning rush-hour, scores of commuters started riding bicycles to work. Dave Howland, who traveled from New Hampshire to London with his youngest son a few days before the Borough Market attack, said he was conscious of the threat when he went to Shakespeare's Globe theatre, a round wooden venue in the Borough Market area.