Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the January 2015 attacks and the November 13 attacks in Paris.
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Also Saturday, French President François Hollande unveiled a plaque in memory of Clarissa Jean-Philippe, a 26-year-old policewoman who was killed by the Hyper Cacher terrorist, Amedy Coulibaly, a day before the supermarket attack in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge.
The one-year anniversary on Thursday of the Charlie Hebdo shootings was overshadowed when a man was killed by police as he approached a police station in northern Paris wielding a meat cleaver and wearing what later turned out to be a fake explosives vest.
Later Sunday, as night fell, the square’s central statue of Marianne – symbol of the French republic – was illuminated, as well as a “remembrance tree”, an oak planted at the west end of the square in honour of the attack victims.
French rocker and national icon Johnny Hallyday joined the army choir in a special, somber musical performance.
The ceremony is part of a weekend of events marking the first anniversary of terrorist attacks on a Jewish market in Paris and the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Two more attacks – one against a police officer and another that included a hostage-taking at a kosher supermarket – brought the final death toll to 17.
Around 2,000 people gathered in Paris Sunday to remember the victims of all of the terror attacks that occurred a year ago in France, killing almost 150 people.
“The office’s anti-terror section will determine the identity of the attacker and his motivations”, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said at a press conference, at the French Capitol. “If we knew where he was, we’d catch him”, said Van der Sypt.
His fingerprints are reported to match those of a homeless man convicted of theft in 2013 in the south of France, who at the time of his arrest gave his name as Sallah Ali and said he was Moroccan.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald says the film is so important because it explains how counterintuitive France’s response to both attacks has been.
But the note and other evidence are pointing to conflicting information about the man’s identity, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told radio station France Inter on Friday.
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He said about half the cases had reached the inquiry stage, and that even though the number of investigating magistrates had risen to 11 from 7 last September, anti-terrorism authorities risked being overwhelmed because “since 2012 we have seen a doubling of these cases every year”.
