Rocker Johnny Hallyday will perform at a concert in Paris on Sunday to mark a year since 1.6-million people gathered in the capital in support of freedom of expression, following the deaths of Charlie Hebdo’s best-known cartoonists.
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The Nov. 13 attacks marked the height of a violent year for France that began with a January 7 assault on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper.
Local journalist Anna Polonyi, an editor at the International New York Times, could see the attack from her flat and posted photos to social media showing what appeared to be a bomb-disposal robot near the body of the suspect. Three days of attacks left 17 dead.
France is still under a state of emergency following the 13 November attacks in Paris, in which gunmen linked to the Islamic State group killed 130 people.
President Francois Hollande and mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo layed a wreath by the statue of Marianne, a symbol of the French republic, in the Place de la Republique in central Paris.
Hundreds of sympathisers from Paris and across France joined the ceremony, reflecting on the Charlie Hebdo attacks and how it has violated one of the country’s most cherished values.
Adrien Rapicault, a 24-year-old Parisian, attended the memorial at Place de la République and said the crowd appeared small when he arrived, perhaps a few thousand.
We asked him about the kind of psychological issues people involved in the attacks were still suffering from, and what kind of impact the attack has had on the psyche of France. Hollande responded to the November massacre by vowing to crush ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve praised the “remarkable work” of the security forces in the incident.
Mosques across France opened their doors to the public this weekend in a bid by the Muslim community to build bridges following a series of militant attacks that rocked France in 2015.
The attack “illustrates very well the multiform character of the terrorist threat today in France”, said Mr Molins.
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“We have to face from now on hardened fighters, used to extreme violence, ready to kill even at the cost of their own lives”.
