France observes day of mourning
Victims’ names read in ceremony tinged with patriotism.
France, still reeling from deadly terrorist attacks two weeks ago, held a national day of mourning on Friday,
— France, still LONDON reeling from deadly terrorist attacks two weeks ago, held a national day of mourning on Friday, centered on a memorial service in Paris that was tinged with patriotism, solemnity and no lack of defiance.
About a thousand people, including President Francois Hollande, attended the service in the courtyard of Les Invalides, a former military hospital in central Paris that houses Napoleon’s tomb and a military museum. At least 10 survivors in wheelchairs lined up in front of the stands in the open-air courtyard, which was packed with the families of victims and of those wounded.
Addressing the crowd, Hollande said that the 130 victims of the terrorist attacks of Nov. 13 represented “130 laughs that we won’t hear anymore, 130 voices that went quiet forever.”
“These women, these men, embodied the happiness of life,” Hollande continued. “They were killed because they were life, they were shot down because they were France, they were slain because they were freedom.”
Those in attendance observed a minute of silence as the names of all the victims, who Hollande noted came from 17 countries, were read out. Hollande said that most of the victims were younger than 35. They came from France, Germany, Chile, the United States and Morocco, among others.
The names included Manuel Colaccedio Dias, 63, a retired chauffeur and avid soccer enthusiast; Matthieu Giroud, a professor of geography at the University of Marnela-Vallée, who had a 3-year-old son, Gary, and a baby girl expected in March; Nohemi Gonzalez, 23, a vivacious first-generation Mexican-American from California, who was studying industrial design; and Hodda Saadi, 35, a bubbly yoga-loving French restaurant manager with Tunisian roots.
The simultaneous attacks on Nov. 13, which spanned from the Stade de France, the national sports stadium on the northern edge of the city, to bohemian enclaves in central Paris popular with young people, have stirred deep anxieties in France.
The assaults have stoked fears about security and the threat of Islamic extremism emanating from France’s impoverished suburbs.