PARIS, 12 November (EFE) – On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the bloody jihadist attacks of 13 November 2015, a wide range of people took to the Place de la République in Paris this Wednesday to light candles and leave flowers for the 132 victims and hundreds of injured in the deadliest attack on mainland France since World War II.
“The victims are still in our hearts,” insisted Chantal Barata, who is in her 70s, in a statement to EFE, saying that although no one was directly affected, she could not hold back her tears as she remembered what happened.
The Parisian had come all the way from his home in the Luxembourg Gardens district and wanted to gather in front of the recreated sanctuary at the foot of the square’s iconic statue of the French Republic. This woman’s goal was to “perpetuate the memory” of those who disappeared that night nearly 10 years ago.
“This is also a gesture to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen as often,” Barata said.
The woman was alluding to two other jihadist attacks that occurred shortly before and after November 13, 2015. One was carried out against the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo magazine in January 2015 (12 people were killed), and the other was carried out in Nice in July 2016 (86 people killed after being hit by a truck).
Christine, 62, experienced a 13N attack almost firsthand. This neighbor in Paris’s 11th district was drinking at a bar near La Belle Equipe, where one of three terrorist commandos killed 21 people, making it the second deadliest attack that night after the Bataclan concert hall (92 dead), also in the 11th district.
“The bar owner asked us to come in and closed the door. We were there until 3 a.m., and little by little information came out. When I left the bar, it all seemed incomprehensible to me. The scientific police were there,” he recalled.
Ten years later, Christine’s routine remains the same. He continues to take public transport and sit on cafe terraces. But the woman assumed attacks like 13N “could happen again”, pointing to the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the attack on Nice’s Promenade des Anglais.
Remy is also in his 60s but has come from far away. He boarded the train this morning at 6:45 a.m. from Montelimar, about 600 kilometers southeast of Paris. This was just to attend a memorial service being held this week to commemorate 13N’s 10th anniversary.
“The suffering caused by these attacks is not only French, but international and worldwide, because many people of other nationalities died,” the man recalled.
For him, the victims of 13N have not been forgotten, even though “a lot has happened” in France and the world in the last 10 years.
“It is necessary for France to move forward and for history to move forward, but we do not forget this and we live together. We have gone through difficult times, but this does not prevent us from moving forward with the motto ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’.”
A few meters away from the sanctuary in Place de la République, which in some way recreates the sanctuary set up in the days after the 13th, an exhibition of about 50 photographs organized by the city council recalls all the places attacked by jihadist special forces.
Stade de France in Saint-Denis (1 death), La Belle Équipe restaurant and cafe (21 people), Le Carillon and Le Petit Cambodge (15 deaths, both in District X), La Bonne Vière and Casa Nostra (5 deaths in two establishments in District XI). At Comptoir Voltaire, one of the terrorists was killed when his explosive vest exploded, and 16 others were injured, three of them seriously.
While Parisians and tourists sadly walked between the sanctuary and the exhibition, several workers were working on assembling the giant screen. Tomorrow, the entire nearly nine-hour memorial ceremony will be broadcast live in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Antonio Torres del Cerro
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