France honors victims 10 years after attacks at Bataclan concert hall, cafes and national stadium

PARIS -- Ten years on, survivors of the Paris attacks conflict to header with the trauma arsenic France prepares to wage tribute Thursday to the victims of the assaults that near more than 130 radical dead and much than 400 injured.

“The 10th day is present and emotions and hostility are everyplace for america survivors,” said 39-year-old Arthur Denouveaux, president of victims’ relation Life for Paris. “That benignant of shields america from the satellite successful a way, due to the fact that we’re truthful focused connected the grief and connected remembering those who mislaid their lives.”

On Nov. 13, 2015, 9 Islamic State radical gunmen and termination bombers struck wrong minutes of 1 another astatine respective locations successful the deadliest unit to onslaught France since World War II.

They targeted fans astatine the Stade de France stadium and cafe-goers and ending with a bloodbath successful the Bataclan, sidesplitting 130 people. Two survivors who aboriginal took their ain beingness arsenic effect of the carnal and intelligence trauma besides person been recognized arsenic victims.

Denouveaux was astatine the performance of the Californian stone set Eagles of Death Metal astatine the Bataclan. Since then, helium has made a constituent of telling his story, talking to the media and penning books to support what happened from being forgotten.

“The hardest portion is Nov. 14 erstwhile you person to get backmost to mean beingness someway and the grief is inactive here, but the enslaved is simply a small much distant,” Denouveaux told The Associated Press.

At 9:47 p.m., 3 gunmen burst into the Bataclan, firing indiscriminately and sidesplitting 90 people.

Denouveaux escaped erstwhile helium heard the archetypal weapon shots by crawling toward the nearest exigency exit door.

“I retrieve crawling connected apical of bodies. I judge astir of the radical were pretending to beryllium dormant and were not dead, but still. And I retrieve a fewer faces oregon astatine slightest a fewer facial expressions of radical who were needfully dormant due to the fact that of the space of the neck, due to the fact that of colour of the skin,” helium said.

Out successful the street, helium helped bewildered Eagles of Death Metal's members get successful a taxi.

A begetter of 3 girls, aged 2, 4 and 6, Denouveaux says it took him a twelvemonth and a batch of medicines to flooded the astir captious phases of post-traumatic accent disorder.

“But since 2017 I would say, I’ve had nary panic attack, I’ve had thing of that kind," helium said. "But I’m precise cautious due to the fact that I’m not definite you heal from PTSD.”

Thursday’s main ceremonial is to instrumentality spot astatine a recently created memorial plot by the Paris City Hall successful the beingness of French President Emmanuel Macron, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, survivors and families of victims.

Macron besides volition laic wreaths connected the sites of the attacks earlier the plot event. Parisians are invited to enactment candles, flowers and written notes connected the city’s Republic Plaza and the Eiffel Tower volition beryllium lit successful the colors of the French emblem astatine night.

“The federation volition stitchery to grant the representation of those who mislaid their lives, amusement its unwavering enactment for their loved ones, explicit its gratitude to each those who intervened (that night), and reaffirm its ongoing committedness to the combat against terrorism,” Macron's bureau said successful a statement.

The caller memorial garden, designed with the contributions of survivors and relatives of radical who died successful the attacks, evokes the six sites of the attacks with the names of the victims engraved connected steles.

Denouveaux, who was progressive from the beginning, said the task aims to make “a spot that remembers the dormant but besides a spot of life, a spot that is beautiful, that is serene.”

The French shot federation volition honor the victims Thursday arsenic France’s nationalist squad hosts Ukraine successful a men’s World Cup qualifier. The lucifer volition beryllium astatine the Parc des Princes successful Paris alternatively than the Stade de France successful the adjacent suburb of Saint-Denis with a minute’s soundlessness earlier kickoff.

Nov. 13, 2015, became an important milestone successful France's history, traumatizing an full federation and shaking the country’s consciousness of security.

Survivors had to find a caller way successful beingness pursuing the attacks, Denouveaux explained.

“When you past a violent onslaught … you go disconnected from the remainder of the world,” Denouveaux said. “There are 3 mourning phases to beryllium done: the mourning for those who died, the mourning for the idiosyncratic you were … and the mourning of the representation radical person of you.”

A monthslong proceedings successful 2021-2022 led to the condemnation of the lone surviving subordinate of the squad that carried retired the attacks, Salah Abdeslam, who was sentenced to beingness successful prison without parole. The peculiar coercion tribunal besides convicted 19 different men involved.

“Ten years later, erstwhile I archer idiosyncratic who doesn’t know: ‘Well, I was astatine the Bataclan,’ the person's cognition of maine changes immediately,” Denouveaux said. “There’s the emotion they felt that day, but also, I think, the fearfulness of wondering ‘Is helium OK? Can I speech to him astir it? How bash we bash that?’ And that, of course, puts you retired of phase.”