Culture contributor Paula Weir was in Paris one year ago, when last November’s terrorist attacks killed 130 people across the French capital. Here, she offers her memories of the day.
Sting is the first artist to play on the stage in the Bataclan Venue in Paris this Saturday night, the 12th of November. 90 people died there in a jihadist attack last year on the 13th of November in the Bataclan concert hall in Paris which, having been given a grant to restore the building by the government; revealed it’s new refurbished facade earlier this month .
Le Bataclan rouvrira finalement le 12 novembre avec un concert de Sting https://t.co/zEqbobk7lg pic.twitter.com/reD1yIq7PL
— Libération (@libe) November 4, 2016
Sting will open the show on the 12th with Fragile, believing it to be most appropriate song to mark the occasion. “We have two important tasks to reconcile," he wrote on his website. "First, to remember and honour those who lost their lives in the attack a year ago, and second to celebrate the life and the music that this historic theatre represents."
Leaving La Casa Nostra on the evening of the 13th of November 2015, I had no idea that choosing to break with my tradition of a coffee after dinner would prove such a significant life choice.
US rockers Eagles Of Death Metal take to the stage in The Bataclan, November 2015
I’d been gifted a ticket of a flight to Paris for that weekend. Having walked around Pére-Lachaise and then Montmartre during the day, I was on the hunt for a particular vegetarian restaurant near Rue Bichat in the 10th arrondissements.
It wasn’t open when I reached it but as I was famished from walking and unwilling to wait I wandered passed and checked the menus of restaurants on Rue Alibert. Feeling inexplicably uncomfortable and wary, I decided to compromise and chose a pizza in La Casa Nostra.
Afterwards, I walked towards Boulevard Voltaire with the intent to go to Place De La Bastille in the 11th district. Still feeling oddly uncomfortable I changed my mind and veered toward a metro station to head to Shakespeare & Co & the Latin Quarter.
Walking into the metro I heard what I thought at the time were strange fireworks. I disembarked in the Latin Quarter to the sound of distant sirens. Passing time there over the next two hours, the varied intonation of sirens got louder and more frequent.
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Oblivious to what was occurring, I made my way back to the hotel. Passing through the 11th District, the Metro train didn’t stop at three stations. This confused a lot of people in the carriage. When I came out by the roundabout near my hotel, there were police and ambulance flying by and a helicopter circling above.
Seeing no-one in reception, I headed straight to my room which overlooked the 11th arrondissement. Turning on the news on TV, I saw the full horror of what was happening was across all stations with confusing misinformation. I saw images of the restaurant I’d been in flash across the screen and of those I had pondered. I watched the updates on the Bataclan and notifications on border closures all the while trying to answer texts from colleagues, friends and family to say I was ok.
Next morning there were more large bangs and the same helicopter fluttering back and forth. The news was no longer reporting these explosions, so I can only guess at what they may have been.
While trying to contact the airline to find out about the flight the next morning there was a knock on the door from the cleaning lady wanting to enter. She explained she was in a hurry to finish so she could go home. Being North African and Muslim, her husband hadn’t wanted her to leave the house that morning.
She lived near the Stade de France. He was afraid for her, not just because of further attacks but for the potential backlash to those with Islamic faith. We talked a little about the surrealism of the events, and the sad possibility of tarring people with one brush out of fear. Wishing her a safe trip home, I headed to the hotel reception area, where they advised heading to the more tourist-friendly areas of the city, assuming them safer.
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Each carriage in the Metro had a number of soldiers with frightening weapons in their hands. Police draped the streets. Mostly, everywhere was closed. I was struck by sign in a restaurant which translated had said 'We’re sorry, but we are too sad to open'.
In the midst of the hushed sparsely peopled streets was an encouraging sense of empathy and solidarity despite the epidemic of shock in the air. People were generously helpful, conversational and kind to each other in the wake of the previous evenings events.
Fenced off iconic buildings and the looming black shadow of the Eiffel tower echoed the oppressive actions of the attackers.
I went to the area of the restaurant I had left the night before. I thought of the waitress who had asked me had I wanted coffee and the couple who had taken seats outside as I had walked away. I saw the blood on the pavement and as I do now, wondered what had been their fate.
Mourners pay tribute outside the Bataclan after the events of November 2015
Flying home the next morning, I had a feeling of abandoning those in need. I searched the plane for the face of a girl who had sat behind me on the way out, talking about visiting her friends in Paris for a concert at the Bataclan before heading back with them to college in America.
She was 18. She had mentioned this would be the flight she would return on to the person she had been chatting to beside her on the outbound flight. She wasn’t there.
I checked the papers for her over the week and didn’t see a mention of the death of an 18-year-old female American student. Had she been injured? Did she get out? Had she lay beneath the dead?
Throughout the year I have thought of the concert-going students, the waitress and the couple at odd moments like a stool knocked over in a bar, strange dreams, when standing in an airport queue.
One year on this Sunday the 13th the doors Bataclan will be closed. Those who experienced the true horror and violence of that night, along with the loved ones of the fallen, will attend the unveiling of a plaque in front of the concert hall.
Remembering the city, those who lost their lives, those who lost loved ones, those who survived, those changed forever, those victimised because of their faith following those attacks and those who fall under the shells of cities and towns bombed daily in Syria, the lyrics of Fragile seem extremely apt.
“Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay”
Gordon Sumner CBE
