Within the past few weeks two French leftists, probably anarchist-sympathetic, and who probably don't know one another, have come by the local bookstore. Both of them seem kind of down on the prospects of militancy in the French working class. I talked to the older one about the May 1968 strikes, but his attitude was that nowadays it was almost as if like it had never happened. The younger one thought that the French, and to some extent, the European working class was being bought off by the welfare state which they took for granted and which decreased their militancy. He said the European left often looked to the American left for inspiration, which I found kind of surprising, although maybe I shouldn't have, after all, the civil rights campaign in Ireland's six counties was modelled on the US civil rights campaign. He also said there were no spaces like our bookstore or some of the local squats in Paris - spaces which were kind of anarchistic, DIY, non-bureaucratic and a little messy looking.
Which would extend to events like Critical Mass. He also echoed the older man, he said Americans went to Paris and have the idea that Picasso is still painting on the Left Bank. and students are tearing up the cobblestones in the Latin Quarter, and it just isn't like that any more.