. Ten years later, Paris revives the memory of the attacks of November 13, 2015, where 132 people died in a coordinated attack in different scenarios. This Thursday, starting at 11:30, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, has silently toured the six places to honor the victims with two key points: the Bataclan room, where he stopped after 3:00 p.m., and the memorial dedicated to the victims, where in the afternoon the speeches will be held in a ceremony designed by the same authors as the one for the Olympic Games.
The first phase of the commemoration has allowed the authorities of that time – such as the then President of the Republic, François Hollande, the Prime Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, or the Minister of the Interior, Manuel Valls – to return to the places of the massacre. They were accompanied by the presidents of the victims’ associations, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo (she was already mayor then and was one of the first to arrive at the concert hall that night) and different groups of police officers who were part of the assault forces.
On November 13, 2015, three nine-man commandos with automatic weapons and explosive belts, in a synchronized action between 9:20 p.m. on Friday and 1:40 a.m. on Saturday, 90 people lost their lives in the Bataclan concert hall. In various terraces and restaurants in the 10th and 11th arrondissement of Paris, another 39. In the Stade de France, one more. Perhaps the most forgotten of all the victims. Right there, the mayor of Saint-Denis proclaimed in his speech what the entire European population would like to think: “The terrorists have lost.”
The city has recovered. Life goes on and places like the Bataclan have returned to normal. That is part of the message that Paris sends on the anniversary of the attacks, returning to the places of the tragedy, giving a voice to the victims who were grouped together in two associations that have kept the memory alive. But part of the road has already been done. One of them, Life for Paris, has now decided to dissolve. “We do not want to be professional victims,” its president, Arthur Dénouveaux, explains to this newspaper.
Not everyone is able to see it the same way. “Since that November 13, there is a void that cannot be filled: my father loved life,” said Sophie Dias, daughter of the first victim of the deadly day, Manuel Dias, at the doors of the Stade de France, the first stop of the commemoration. “They tell us to turn the page after 10 years, but the absence is immense, the shock remains intact and the lack of understanding continues with us,” he added.
(ISIS), which still controlled cities such as Raqa, in Syria, or Mosul, in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attacks hours later. It was a response, they announced, to France’s participation in the international coalition that was bombing their positions in the two Arab countries. Ten years later, the caliphate has been overthrown and the terrorist threat has plummeted in Europe. But in France the threat, the fear, has not completely disappeared.
Beyond the scenes of the massacre, Paris has illuminated some of its icons, such as the Eiffel Tower or the monument in Place de la République, where thousands of people have come these days to leave their memory to the victims.
The culmination of the anniversary will occur at 6:00 p.m., with the inauguration of the 13-N memorial garden, at the back of the Paris City Hall. There will be speeches from President Macron, Mayor Hidalgo, Philippe Dupperon, from the 13once15 Association, and Denouveaux, from Life For Paris.
