Pretty off-topic, but I thought it was funny.

Via the London Times online: Paris is under attack by extremely well-organized stealth operatives who have been sneaking into museums and Parisian catacombs and … cleaning up historic sites. Or repairing things. Or holding poetry readings.

Mr Kunstmann belongs to les UX, a clandestine network that is on a mission to discover and exploit [Paris]’s neglected underworld. The urban explorers put on film shows in underground galleries, restore medieval crypts and break into monuments after dark to organise plays and readings. In the eyes of their supporters, they are the white knights of modern culture, renovating forgotten buildings and staging artistic events beyond the reach of a stifling civil service.

The authorities view them differently: as the dark side of the City of Light – irresponsible, paranoid subversives whose actions could serve as a model for terrorists. A police unit has been trained to track les UX through the sewers, catacombs and old quarries that are their pathways under Paris. Prosecutors have been instructed to file charges whenever feasible.

The stand-off is symbolic of French society: a rigorous bureaucracy on the surface with a bizarre subculture below.

We’ve all gotten so used to berating the French for their haughtiness or lack of pluck in wartime that we sometimes forget another of their foibles: they love bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy. It’s just too funny that the city that prides itself on its history and culture reduces its culture-lovers to crawling through sewers and skanking around in catacombs in order to prevent historic sites and artifacts from crumbling from neglect.

And what are these “terrorists” up to with all their skulking around? Well, sometimes they fix clocks.

Last year the Untergunther spent months hidden in the Panthéon, the Parisian mausoleum that holds France’s greatest citizens, where they repaired a clock that had been left to rust. Slipping in at closing time every evening – French television said that they had their own set of keys – they set up a workshop hidden behind mock wooden crates at the top of the monument. The security guards never found it. The Untergunther used a professional clockmaker, Jean-Baptiste Viot, to mend the 150-year-old mechanism.

When the clock began working again, officials were horrified. The Centre for National Monuments confirmed that the clock had been repaired but said that the authority had begun legal action against the Untergunther. Under official investigation for breaking and entry, its members face a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a €15,000 (£10,500) fine.

“We could go down in legal history as the first people ever to be prosecuted for repairing a clock,” said Mr Kunstmann. But he was unrepentant.

Glad the government is cracking down on these guys. They’re obviously psychopaths.