France stops, Paris remembers. November 13, 2015 remains the darkest day, the nightmare that lasted 5 hours, the time of the bloody raids of the ISIS jihadists, from the Stade de France to the bistros, where the machine gun bursts hit randomly among the customers sitting at the tables. To end with the terrible carnage at the Bataclan, the concert hall where 90 young people, including the Italian Valeria Solesin, 28 years old, were killed while attending a rock concert.
All Parisians, without exception, remember in detail that evening whose ending could not be imagined. They remember where they were when the first news arrived, which family members and friends were on the streets, therefore at risk. There was France-Germany, a luxury friendly, at the Stade de France, there were the Eagles of Death Metal on stage at the Bataclan. The evening was mild, the bars in the areas most loved by young people, the 10th and 11th arrondissements, were full of young people. In the end, 132 died under the blows of ISIS terrorists, 8 of whom were killed in the perfectly coordinated actions. Over 350 were injured, many others never recovered from the terrible shock. From the police sirens running everywhere, to the TVs broadcasting images without being able to explain what was happening, the events of that evening remain unprecedented in Paris, which 10 years later underlines that it does not want to forget anything or anyone of those tragic hours.
The first three terrorists went into action at the Stade de France already full of fans, they blew themselves up and the terrible roar stopped the action of the players on the pitch. The driver of a bus parked outside the stadium, which the terrorists were unable to enter, died. The then president, François Hollande, was evacuated as the attacks began in Paris. In the 10th arrondissement, the first gunshots, people fleeing everywhere, blood. The names of the establishments affected are forever engraved in the minds of Parisians, «La bonne bière», «La belle Equipe», «Le Carillon». Everyone will tell their story, who went to celebrate the birthday of a friend who was killed by terrorists, who was there by chance, who should have been there and was saved by a mishap. While the terrorists’ cars speed through the two highly populated arrondissements of Paris causing death, the police surround the Bataclan concert hall, where three terrorists, three Frenchmen recruited by ISIS in the banlieues, open fire on the audience while the band is playing. The survivors, wounded, hidden or who pretended to be dead, will recount scenes of terror that lasted three hours, during which moments of aggression against spectators taken as human shields alternated with “negotiations” with the French leatherheads. During which the three terrorists proclaimed, among other things, that they wanted to take revenge for the American bombings of Syria.
Shortly before midnight, the leatherheads launched the attack, two of the terrorists blew themselves up by activating the jacket stuffed with explosives. The evening ended with carnage. President Hollande spoke just before midnight and addressed the French live on TV: “It’s a horror,” he said, declaring a state of emergency throughout the country and the closure of France’s borders. Thirteen terrorists who were part of the commandos of November 13 were killed: all except Salah Abdeslam, arrested months later and sentenced to life imprisonment. The investigations led to the identification of networks of supporters in France and Belgium.
Ten years later, Parisians are invited – on Thursday, the day of the anniversary – to bring something – a flower, a candle, a message – to Place de la République. The Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, has asked the police to increase vigilance in fear of attacks, President Emmanuel Macron will commemorate the tragic anniversary by stopping in silence in front of every bistro, the Bataclan and the Stade de France. Then he will inaugurate the “garden of remembrance of November 13th” on the Place Saint-Gervais, in front of the Hotel de Ville. A one hour and 40 minute ceremony will take place under the artistic direction of Thierry Reboul, conductor with Thomas Jolly of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The theme will be music, a tribute to the “feeling of celebration” against which the ISIS men railed. «When I addressed the terrorists in court – François Hollande recalled in recent days – I told them: ‘Look at the difference: you attacked, you killed, you murdered innocent people. We judge you, but you have lawyers, you have the law, you have a trial. And so we are the ones who have won. You are individuals who have committed the irreparable, we are democracy. Who wins, who always wins in the end.”