This is Strasbourg yesterday. They keep the Christmas elves in their shop windows rather longer there.

The mementoes left there are in memory of the victims of the December terror attack.

Some will say that’s incomparable with the ones activists leave in Valletta since Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed because that’s more than a year later.

Except that there is no law that sets a time limit for public anger, sadness, protest and regret.

And there is no point when the street sweepers get to decide it is no longer appropriate for people to remember the untimely death of others.

Of course in their defence the street sweepers did not take that decision in Malta. Their boss Owen Bonnici, who apparently had nothing better to do at the time, gave them the order.

None of the people who left flowers and candles in that street in central Strasbourg will need to go to court to defend their right to do so. Or to answer to someone like Joe Brincat who wants to exercise his right to say why we don’t have the right to do this.

Such is life. Here.

In the meantime, now perhaps, Owen Bonnici’s days will be fuller. He made this announcement on Facebook yesterday. Sorry ladies.