Amid the acrid smell of riot police tear gas, a Skoda car showroom’s front window smashes into a thousand pieces as the “casseurs”, or “breakers”, take aim, their faces hidden under hoods and ghoulish face masks.

Yards away and unperturbed, banner-waving workers from France’s hardline CGT union march on from Paris’ Place de la Bastille, birthplace of the French Revolution, chanting: “No discussion, no compromise, scrap the bosses’ law.”

Behind them, someone has scrawled on the wall along boulevard Diderot in pink the words: “Hollande equals Thatcher”. It was not, presumably, meant as a compliment.

Another spring another strike; since 1968, the ritual of Gallic “workers” and students taking to the streets along this very route to oppose the latest timid attempt to reform France is as familiar as the darling buds of May.

Equally predictable are dark mutterings of a summer of discontent. Plus ça change, one is tempted to say.