Next week marks the tenth anniversary of France’s bloodiest attack; the lone survivor has been sentenced to life in prison, and a permanent memorial is being planned.
On the evening of November 13, 2015, jihadists killed 130 people in gunshots and suicide bombings in and around Paris; the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility.
The US band Eagles of Death Metal was performing at the Bataclan music hall when the assailants killed about ninety people.
They ended the lives of dozens more at Parisian restaurants and cafes, and one person near the Stade de France football stadium just outside the capital, where crowds were watching France play Germany.
Several ceremonies are to mark 10 years since the attacks on Thursday, with President Emmanuel Macron expected to speak.
The sole surviving member of the 10-person jihadist cell that staged the attacks, 36-year-old Salah Abdeslam, is serving life in jail, after nine fellow attackers blew themselves up or were killed by police.
“France over these years has been able to stand united and overcome it all,” Francois Hollande, who was president at the time, told AFP in a recent interview.
Hollande was in the crowd at the football stadium when the attacks erupted. He was whisked out of the audience before re-appearing on national television later that night, describing what had happened as a “horror”.
He declared France “at war” with the jihadists and their self-proclaimed caliphate straddling Syria and Iraq.
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