FAMILIES of victims stood in silence and tears as President Emmanuel Macron and other officials honoured the 130 people killed two years ago in France’s deadliest terror attacks.
Outside the Stade de France national stadium, Macron and the mayor of the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis placed a wreath of red, white and blue flowers to honour the first victim of the horrors of November 13, 2015. Manuel Dias was killed by a suicide bomber.
The commemorations continued at Paris cafes, where city officials read out the names of the 29 people gunned down while dining and drinking.
Crowds joined families outside the Bataclan concert hall, where Daesh extremists opened fire on a dancing crowd and held hundreds hostage in an hours-long stand-off with police. Ninety people were killed there and hundreds injured.
Some survivors will have disabilities for life, and many have deep psychological scars.
National police chief Eric Morvan said yesterday that France “entered a new era of terrorism” on the night of the attacks.
They ushered in nearly two years of state of emergency, replaced just two weeks ago with a tough law allowing police wider latitude against anyone suspected of links to radicalism. The state of emergency did not prevent subsequent extremist violence, including a lorry attack in Nice seven months later.
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