Four members of the “cultural guerrilla” cell Untergunther were exonerated in Paris on Friday for breaking into the Panthéon after-hours to repair the building’s antique, non-functioning central clock. Folk heroes in France, these cultural guerrillas-cum-conservationists share a love of French heritage and ambivalence towards French bureaucracy. As the group captain on the Panthéon project put it: “we would like to be able to replace the state in the areas it is incompetent . . . but our means are limited and we can only do a fraction of what needs to be done. There’s so much to do in Paris that we won’t manage in our lifetime.”

French authorities last stumbled upon the Untergunther’s trail in 2004, when an underground movie theater was discovered under the 16th arrondissement, containing a skull tableaux evocative of Le Théâtre du Grand Guignol.

The Untergunther spent two years in a secret workshop under the Panthéon’s famed neo-classical dome, tinkering on wooden benches and makeshift computers. The group’s expert clockmakers labored in the dead of night under the noses of sleepy watchmen, eventually reanimating the clock.

France’s Centre of National Monuments took spurious legal action when the group came forward, but little came of their attempt to deflect attention from inept security protocols at one of Paris’s cultural jewels. It’s comforting to know that at least some people in Old Europe are keeping time.

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