Nothing new about streets aflame in Paris

IN THE merry month of April 1962 with the buds fresh upon the trees a BEA propeller-driven airliner landed at Orly Airport, Paris. I was on it. Newly engaged by the Reuter news agency, aged 23, coincidentally bilingual with French, I was on my first foreign posting. And what an exciting one it was! Paris was aflame.

Angry crowds roiled down the boulevards shouting “A bas De Gaulle”. These were the youth of the extreme Right, fronting harder men who wanted to kill him. Coming the other way were the Stalin-worshipping Parti Communiste Français and they were shouting the same thing. The country that prides itself on being the cradle of European civilisation was on the threshold of anarchy, assassination, coup d’état, even civil war.

I mention this gateau-slice of history because you could touch down today and be perfectly at home. The airline would now be BA, the airliner jet powered instead of turboprop and the airport would be CDG instead of Orly. But the riots, the charging black-clad CRS police, the petrol bombs, the wailing sirens of paddy-wagons or ambulances, the eye-stinging gas plumes, the journos scurrying for cover – it’s all back. It makes an old codger quite nostalgic. Ah, Paris, Paris, you never really change do you?

If you wish for a quieter life, dear reader, stick to our London demos. They resemble a police enquiry as to the result of the Eton-Harrow match. If you want an out-of-control riot just pop into the Central Lobby of the House of Commons.