France is a country that believes you should only know what the powers that be want you to know
wrote
Stephen Clarke after landing in a snow storm at a Paris airport a couple of years ago,
and containing this situation obviously depended on people sitting around in ignorance until they decided individually to come and ask what the hell was going on. Too much information would have caused a stampede for luggage forms and a sense of outraged solidarity in the crowd that would have required even more riot police.
