Bank robbery, French style

Little Bruvver, who emigrated to France last year[1], was over this
weekend for the family gathering for Ma's 80th birthday party.

Anyway, he was chuckling about the bank robbery in his nearest small
town. You know the scene: bar, restaurant, a few shops, bank, etc, all
grouped round a square.

Anyway, seems the local notary, who's the eyes and ears of the place,
saw a suspicious-looking van draw up outside the bank. She watched it,
and then phoned the gendarmerie down the road.

"It's lunchtime," she was told. French Plod was tucking in.

Then the likely lads jumped out of the van, tooled up, and charged into
the bank. she phoned again.

"They're robbing the bank!!!!"

"OK (burp). We come!" And they hopped into their van and roared off.

Er, no, they didn't. Because the gendarmerie is behind a thick secure
fence, gated, etc, and the villains had waited until all the Plod were
inside having their lunch before they chained the gates shut with an
FOAD chain and went off to rob the bank.

Plod was caught.

More and more phone calls, and the town turned out to watch the robbery,
and when Plod finally arrived, having presumably begged an angle grinder
from somewhere, the grinning townspeople pointed down the road and said:
"They went thataway. Oh, about 15 minutes ago....."

[1] But he isn't French[2].
[2] His driving licence is, though. And the Frogs boobed when changing
his UK licence to French, because they have included the rights to drive
every single vehicle on it - HGVs, buses, everything except tracked
vehicles. He's rather chuffed.