FRANCE - Paris One Year Later

"A visit to Paris one year after devastating terror attacks" PBS NewsHour 11/11/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Sunday will mark a grim anniversary in Paris -- the series of coordinated terror attacks throughout the city that killed 130 and injured nearly 400 on November 13, 2015.  The bloodiest site, Bataclan Music Club, where 89 people were murdered, will reopen Saturday with a concert by Sting.  Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant visited Paris to report on how the city is faring, one year later.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Paris will mark a grim anniversary Sunday, one year after a series of coordinated attacks across the city on Friday the 13th, 2015.

The Bataclan music club, where 89 people were murdered during a concert, is due to reopen tomorrow with a concert by Sting.  Gunmen and suicide bombers allied to ISIS murdered 130 people in total, wounding nearly 400.

Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant has been back to Paris to see how the French capital is coping one year on.

MALCOLM BRABANT, Special correspondent:  Paris has returned to a version of normality, but for those caught up in the worst attack on the French capital since the Second World War, nothing will ever be the same again.

In a discreet corner of this cafe is Caroline Langlade, a survivor of the Bataclan.  Along with several others, she hid in a tiny room for over three hours.  They barricaded the door with a sofa and mini-fridge.  The terrorists tried to get in, failed and resumed the massacre they began while the band was on stage.

(GUNFIRE)

CAROLINE LANGLADE, President, Life for Paris (through translator):  I have a really hard time going to closed-up places or dark rooms, movies, concerts, but also restaurants where there's too many people at night.  It makes me quite jumpy.  I tend to panic.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  During the interview, sirens wailed nearby, and Caroline became uncomfortable.  The film director has found it difficult to concentrate on work and instead devotes her energies running Life for Paris, an organization for survivors and families of those murdered on Friday the 13th.

CAROLINE LANGLADE (through translator):  I'm no longer afraid of death.  I have seen it up close, and I almost died several times that night.  I'm no longer afraid of death, but my fear changed.

And, today, what frightens me most is suffering, physical suffering, human suffering.  I had to face a gigantic amount of it that evening, and I think that I have lived through all the suffering I could have had for a lifetime.