"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."
"The Louvre heist is hardly a harbinger of France's decline any more than the Notre-Dame fire in April 2019 was a symbol of the nation's de-Christianisation. One a daring burglary, the other a simple construction accident yet both reveal far less about the fate of France than about the relentless trimming of state funds for the upkeep of its cultural heritage."
"The very conservative politicians who now lament what they call young people's amnesia about the past are the ones who made sure to cut back history lessons in secondary schools. The French elites are riven with contradictions, and we live in an age of myth-making as the French historian Marc Bloch observed: The periods most devoted to tradition have also been those that took the greatest liberties with its true inheritance."
Some commentators depict the Louvre break-in as a sign of national collapse, but the theft likely involved a couple of opportunists with a crowbar. Many conservatives who decry French dysfunction also celebrated the smoothly run Paris 2024 Olympics and the global admiration it attracted. The Louvre heist and the Notre-Dame fire reflect reductions in state funding for cultural heritage more than they indicate societal decline. Conservative politicians who lament youth amnesia contributed to cuts in secondary-school history lessons. French elites exhibit contradictions, and an age of myth-making often transforms veneration of the past into invented traditions. The crown jewels have repeatedly been stolen, recovered, sold, reassembled, and auctioned since the Revolution.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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