The word spreads across the city that over the river, a man has been shot. Later, a second shooting, and a hijacked car.

Questions have been raised about how prepared Paris is for this type of attack. Poorly, on the evidence. Perhaps police intelligence could not have prevented Friday’s threat to the offices of the television network BFMTV; a lone gunman is difficult to predict. The locations of the shootings on Monday, though, deserve more scrutiny.

The offices of Libération, the far-left newspaper founded by Sartre, are well within central Paris, as are the headquarters of the Société Génerale bank. France’s financial hub benefits from a twenty-four hour guard; in the wake of an attack on a media outlet, the watch was tightened at newspapers citywide. Yet despite the increase in security, response was still painfully slow.

It is unnerving that, even in an age of super-surveillance, a man can hide in plain sight. The suspect, having hijacked a lift to the Champs Elysées, is reported to have escaped via the Metro. The Parisian rail service operates ten thousand security cameras, but by Saturday evening, the trail appeared cold.

A journalist was critically injured, and the suspect remained at large. Coming eventually to the suburb of Bois-Colombes, the gunman hid for over a day, with some sources reporting that he had attempted to commit suicide, before being found on the third floor of a car park.

The sole suspect Abdelhakim Dekhar is not without a previous criminal record. Known for supplying firearms in the infamous Rey-Maupin affair, he served four years in prison from 1998. Three officers and a taxi driver were killed that day.

The police force can hardly be expected to predict who will commit crime, but it stands to reason that those at risk of reoffending should be kept under watch. As it was, Dekhar was able to procure a hunting rifle without alerting the authorities.

Though violent crime in France has fallen sharply, the risk of the guns is never far away. As is customary, the problem is set to worsen. Rising poverty and the popularity of French fascism pushes more to crime each year. The advent of 3D-printers risks an explosion in gun ownership, free from the usual channels of smuggling.

Already in the UK, police raids in Manchester have uncovered plastic guns; France cannot be far behind. As secure as we feel in the falling statistics, France must prepare for future crime, and with considerable speed.

Abdelhakim Dekhar awaits trial, having been charged for attempted murder and kidnap.