Daniel Cohn-Bendit was leader of the May 1968 student protests in Paris:
"This financial crisis is for capitalist neo-liberals what Chernobyl was for the nuclear lobby. It's a catastrophe. I hope we all learn lessons from it. But am I optimistic that we will? That's another question. To think that the biggest neo-liberal nation in the world would start 
It's not the end of capitalism because capitalism has always had the intelligence to reform itself. It will be the end of capitalism when it's incapable of reforming. However, the belief that the market is god is over. It must now be regulated.
We fought for 20 years to bring attention to climate change. It took us a while, but we were right. This crisis will help us in our arguments for sustainable development - that we need a balance between the environment, society and the economy - but I get no joy from it; it saddens me deeply. Ordinary people lose everything, while the big bankers themselves walk away with millions."
Read what other opponents of capitalism make of the credit crunch? - The Guardian