the beginning of the end

I found a mechanic to repair the brakes on a couple of the bikes we have with us on this extended visit to France. The man running the shop in Marignane was born in Brittany, near Rennes. He’d been living in Paris until 1969 when he moved down south following his father’s work. “You’re a 68er” I teased…

Don’t be fooled by what they say about ’68. I was there at the time. I remember being on the boulevards when according to the newsreels it was all riots and revolution. Well – I could see the CRS on the other side of the road and the cameras, well they filmed it from a certain angle to make it look like a huge crowd, but really, it wasn’t like they said. Well, things did change after that. It was the beginning of the great mess. The beginning of the end.

“Well” I replied, “there had been a bit of a mess a few years before… the war and all that”.

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