Paris remembers, wounds stay open: ten years after the 2015 attacks
On a mild November evening, Notre-Dame’s bells pealed across Paris as the city paused to mark a decade since the coordinated attacks that killed 130 people in cafes, restaurants, the Bataclan concert hall and near the Stade de France. The rituals of remembrance — flowers placed at makeshift memorials, names inscribed on plaques, officials and relatives standing together — could not erase the rawness that many survivors and families still carry.
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The events of Nov. 13, 2015 were the deadliest on French soil since World War Two, and they reshaped public life: emergency security measures introduced in the weeks and months after the attacks are today embedded in law. Yet the most visible legacy on the day of the anniversary was not legislation but memory — intimate, painful and sometimes fractious.
Voices that refuse to forget
Families and survivors gathered at the Stade de France before moving to the cafés and the Bataclan, where concerts have resumed amid heightened security. President Emmanuel Macron joined officials and bereaved relatives; in a post on X he wrote, “The pain remains. In solidarity, for the lives lost, the wounded, the families and loved ones, France remembers.”
At a formal ceremony, Sophie, the daughter of one of the first victims, spoke through tears about the enduring absence in her family: “Since that November 13, there is an emptiness that cannot be filled,” she said, recalling the frantic night of phone calls before learning her father had been killed.
For many survivors, the line between public commemoration and private grief is thin. Sebastian Lascoux, who was inside the Bataclan that night when what sounded like firecrackers became gunfire, described a scene that remains branded in his senses: “People ended up all squashed together and collapsed as one,” he said. “And then (there was) the smell of blood.” Lascoux, now 46, still lives with post-traumatic stress and avoids crowded or enclosed spaces; loud pops still trigger panic.
Catherine Bertrand, a Bataclan survivor and vice-president of a victims’ association, acknowledged that the attacks “have marked us forever” but stressed resilience: “There are concerts at the Bataclan, life goes on, we meet up between friends” at the places where the attacks took place.
Other survivors bear permanent physical reminders. Eva, who asked that her surname not be used, lost a leg below the knee after being shot at La Belle Equipe, where 21 people were killed. She returns to Paris’s café terraces but confessed she will “never again” sit with her back to the street.
Memory, museums and contested rituals
Across the capital, commemorative plaques now bear the names of those who died, and a planned Terrorism Memorial Museum aims to enshrine objects donated by families. Curators say the collection, due to open in 2029, will include around 500 items tied to the attacks or victims: a concert ticket from a mother who lost her only daughter, the unfinished guitar of a luthier killed at the Bataclan, and the bullet-pocked blackboard menu from La Belle Equipe that still reads “Happy Hour.”
For some relatives, official ceremonies can reopen wounds or feel insufficient. Stephane Sarrade said he is “incapable of going” to the Bataclan, a place where his 23-year-old son Hugo was killed. Nadia Mondeguer, who lost her daughter Lamia at La Belle Equipe, described the run-up to the anniversary with physical dread — “I’ve been feeling like a fever coming over me… the adrenaline starting to rise again” — and said victims sometimes feel treated as “spectators” at state events. Still, she planned to attend a ceremony to be near other families.
That ambivalence — between the desire to remember and the instinct to avoid retraumatization — has shaped how Paris marks the date. Small acts of private mourning continue alongside state rituals, and many of the city’s cafés and concert venues now carry silent testaments to lives interrupted.
How the attacks changed France — and what remains
Historians and victims note another collective aftereffect: heightened awareness that terror can touch anyone. “What made the November 13 attacks unique was that everyone was a potential victim,” historian Denis Peschanski told assembled audiences. The attacks targeted ordinary nights out — sport, music and dining — fracturing the sense of public safety.
A decade on, French authorities say the threat landscape has shifted. Militant groups such as the Islamic State no longer have the same capacity to coordinate mass attacks on French soil, according to security sources. But the group’s propaganda continues to radicalise individuals online, and lone actors or small cells remain a concern.
Of the ten people who carried out the 2015 rampage, nine died, either blowing themselves up or killed by police. The sole surviving member, Salah Abdeslam, is serving a life sentence. Anti-terror prosecutors this week opened an inquiry into Abdeslam’s former partner, underscoring how legal and investigative threads from 2015 are still active.
Passing memory to the next generation
As the city commemorated the dead, relatives and survivors repeatedly returned to a common theme: the importance of passing on memory so younger generations understand what was lost and why democratic values matter. Sophie, the daughter who spoke at the ceremony, urged that France “raise awareness among younger generations, pass on the values of our republic, and remind them of all those innocent lives lost.”
Ten years after one of France’s darkest nights, Paris remains a city of terraces and concerts, of everyday life continued under the shadow of history. The memorials — small bouquets on pavement, a museum in preparation, plaques with names — are attempts not just to remember what happened but to shape how a society carries its grief forward.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
