The corners of the streets in Paris are marked with a variety of graffiti tags, glyphs and icons, some affixed, some stenciled, some painted freehand. They look like an array of medals on a military man, or more likely an arrangement of runes. There’s a deliberate quality to them, as though this illicit urban project, begun in a frenzy of outrage and audacity forty years ago, had now settled into some calm, methodical phase 2.

We walked along the canal and two painters were creating a vast mural, the mist from their spray cans blowing into the faces of dogs and babies, wherever the wind might carry it.