Ceremonies commemorating the victims of the November 13, 2015, extremist attacks in France that killed 132 people and injured more than 350 began today in Paris and its suburbs with a poignant remembrance by the daughter of the first victim.
The ceremony began at around 11:30 a.m. in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron at the Stade de France in northern Paris, where three suicide bombers blew themselves up at 9:20 p.m. ten years ago during a France-Germany match. Manuel Dias, the bus driver, was killed.
His daughter Sofia said in a moving speech that she would never forget what happened.
"They tell us to turn the page ten years later, but the void is huge," she said.
Flowers and wreaths were then laid beneath the commemorative plaque in memory of her father.
The ceremonies continued in front of the Parisian cafes that were attacked by extremists, then at the Paris Bataclan hall at 2:30 p.m. where the attack also took place.
Then, shortly after the Stade de France, the attacks continued when gunmen fired machine guns at bars and restaurants in a popular district of the capital.
At 9:40 PM, the last group arrived at the Bataclan concert hall where the American hard rock band "Eagles of Death Metal" was performing. The first victims fell on the sidewalk, and then the killers burst into the hall and remained there for almost three hours until elite forces entered.
The attacks, claimed by the Islamic State, killed 130 people, 90 of them at the Bataclan, and injured more than 350. Two Bataclan survivors later killed themselves, bringing the death toll to 132.
The day of commemoration follows this dark sequence of events, and President Emmanuel Macron was at every site of the attack.
He promised an "uncompromising response" in the event of a new attack on France, and that "everything" would be done to prevent it.
"When terrorists want to strike at democracy and freedom, they target France," Macron said, adding that "the Republic has endured."
"No one can guarantee, unfortunately, the end of the attacks, but we can guarantee that those who take up arms against France will receive an uncompromising response," Macron said, presiding over the ceremony.
In his speech, Macron went on to describe at length the "senseless, unjust, unbearable" pain of the victims and families of those killed.
The commemorations are being held under tight security amid a still-high terrorist threat, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told BFMTV television on Monday, adding that "six attacks" have been foiled since the start of the year.
"The goal is to say 'let's all be together', celebrating of course our dead but also the strength of our republic and our culture: the terrorists did not win that night," said Arthur Denuvo, a Bataclan survivor and president of the "Life for Paris" association. He said that today, the association would also officially disband so as not to "lock itself in" to the status of victim.
The commemorations are broadcast live on television and footage is projected onto a large screen in Paris' Place de la République.
A garden commemorating the victims of November 13 will open tonight behind the town hall in the heart of Paris.
The Eiffel Tower will be illuminated in blue, white and red.
The bells of Notre Dame and several churches in the capital rang out this afternoon in tribute to the victims of the November 13 attacks, as requested by Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich. The bells rang between 5:57 p.m. and 6:02 p.m. and then will not ring again until 8 p.m. so as not to disrupt the evening ceremony.
Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the extremist group, was sentenced to life in prison in France in June 2022 for his role in the attacks. Nine other members of the group blew themselves up or were killed by security forces.
The attacks capped a year marked by a series of extremist attacks in France in 2015, including the killings at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on January 7, when 12 people were killed, the murder of a city policewoman in a Paris suburb on January 8, the hostage-taking at the Jewish supermarket Huppert Cashier in Paris on January 9, when four people were killed, the murder of a 32-year-old mother in a parking lot near Paris on April 19, and the beheading of a business executive on June 26 in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier in the southeast.
A heavily armed Moroccan man with a bottle of incendiary liquid, instructed by the Islamic State, seriously wounded a passenger on an Amsterdam-Paris train on August 21, before being subdued by other passengers, including two American soldiers in civilian clothes who were on vacation.
The Museum of Remembrance of Terrorism is set to open in late 2029 or early 2030 in Paris and will dedicate a large part of its collection on November 13 with nearly 500 objects related to those attacks, mostly gifts from victims and grieving families.
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