In search of times past?

In search of times past? A French police officer stands guard next to vehicles burned during a night of clashes between protesters and police, following the police killing of a 17-year-old teenager during a traffic stop, in the Paris Suburb of Nanterre on July 1. Photo: OSV

Some people enter a theatre of war and never see battle. I was in Paris last week, at the height of the reported violence, and witnessed nothing amiss. Wherever I went in central Paris, it was untroubled: the Etoile area, the Louvre, the Comedie-Française (playing to full houses), Montparnasse, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Latin Quarter,…

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