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France needs its own No Kings day to protect its most valuable treasure | Patrick Boucheron and Pierre Singaravélou

We have no crown jewels: the Louvre panic is a distraction from the real threat the far right poses to our democracyAccording to some international commentators – and France’s perpetually doomsaying conservatives – the break-in at the Louvre was much more than a burglary; it was the latest chapter in a grand narrative of national collapse. Never mind that it was probably carried out by a couple of chancers with a crowbar: for some of the pessimists, it’s civilisation itself that’s being prised open.Funny how the same people who decry France’s alleged dysfunctionalism probably marvelled at the Paris Olympics of summer 2024 – that brief, dazzling interlude when the city actually worked, the trains ran on time, and millions around the world fell a little bit in love with France again.Patrick Boucheron is a French historian and author, and professor of history at the Collège de France; Pierre Singaravélou is professor of history at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon- Sorbonne. Continue reading...

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