Shropshire Star

Peter Rhodes on pitched battles in Paris, what became of the rioters and Ukip - a party, not a plague

AH, oui. Les événements de soixante-huite.

Published
Paris '68

It was fifty years ago today that the youth of Paris rose against their government. I was there. Well, sort of. I was actually there a few weeks later on a school trip being bussed across Paris. The guide pointed out that all the freshly resurfaced streets had once been cobbled. But the rioters tore up the cobblestones to chuck at the police, hence the asphalt.

I WOULD like to claim that we Leamington College lads were gripped by the story of a national trauma so violent and so raw that Parisians simply called it les événements, the events. But we were not. We were transfixed by the guy in the open convertible on the other side of the coach. He was driving with a cigarette hanging expertly from his lip, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting under the miniskirt of his beautiful and adoring girlfriend. You didn't see that sort of thing in Leamington Spa. Having dabbled with making war, the French were back to making love.

SOME of the self-proclaimed Maoists, Trotskyists, anarchists and other revolutionaries who swarmed on to the streets of Paris 50 years ago later swapped their combat jackets for smart suits and went on to become well-paid politicians and officials across Europe. This will surprise you only if you have never read Animal Farm.

WHAT is this fashion for people pretending to be dimmer than they are? Paul Oakley, general secretary of Ukip, made a perfectly sensible and logical analogy about his party after last week's election wipeout. He said: "Think of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. It comes along, it causes disruption then it goes dormant. And that's exactly what we're going to do."

THE BBC's usually-sane Nick Robinson led the charge of the disingenuous brigade. Was Oakley suggesting, he gasped, that Ukip was like a plague that killed thousands? No, of course he wasn't. No one is claiming that Ukip will give you pustules in your armpits, wipe out your family and send you all straight to the nearest plague pit with a dusting of quicklime. Oakley was likening his party to a force of nature which comes, goes and returns, wreaking great change.

I HEAVED a sigh at the over-excited response to Oakley's words, recalling that a couple of years ago I wrote that in some ways, notably migration, crime and a profound remembrance of the war, Jersey reminded me of Coventry. I was bombarded with emails from people pointing out that Coventry is nothing like Jersey because it's miles from the sea and hasn't even got a lighthouse. Quite so.

MEANWHILE, a reader claims there is no longer a majority in favour of Brexit because moods have changed and the 2016 Referendum was "a long time ago." This is how fake news begins. The vote was a long time ago. Anyway, it wasn't binding on the Government. In fact, did the Referendum ever really happen? After all, we Brexiters are all old, dim and a bit forgetful...