PARIS: Less insouciant, more policed — France is a changed place since Islamic State extremists killed 130 people in the country’s deadliest attacks a year ago. Fearing it’s becoming more divided, too, survivors and victims’ families marked Sunday’s anniversary of the violence by pleading for national unity instead.
Tourism is hurting, armed forces roam streets and France is still under a state of emergency that rights groups call abusive and ineffective — and that the prime minister now says may be extended yet again.
“We always have this fear that weighs heavily in our hearts. We always try to be careful. And every time we pass by here, we think of them,” said Sabrina Nedjadi, paying respects Sunday at two cafes in her diverse eastern Paris neighborhood targeted in the attacks.
At midday, hundreds of balloons were released to honor the memories of the victims; at dusk, paper lanterns were released into the Canal Saint Martin, bearing red, white and blue lights representing the French tricolor. Onlookers, including many families with children, lined the canal and surrounding bridges, watching silently as the lanterns drifted.
Some fear that France itself is adrift, its government unable to defeat the amorphous extremist enemy.
While French warplanes are targeting IS strongholds in Iraq and Syria, the state of emergency at home allows broadened police powers to search homes and monitor communications. But it could not prevent further attacks on France over the past year, including a truck rampage in Nice by a man claiming allegiance to IS. “Yes, terrorism will strike us again,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned this weekend.
The International Federation for Human Rights warned in a recent report: “France is now in a situation where an ‘exceptional’ regime is becoming permanent, in the name of combating terrorism. But there is little evidence that this approach is working and it comes at a cost to fundamental rights.”
As silence descended Sunday on Paris for a series of commemorations, the son of the first victim of the attacks spoke out for tolerance in the face of hate.
Manuel Dias, an immigrant from Portugal, was killed by a suicide bomber outside the national stadium during an international match Nov. 13, 2015.
Under heavy security, President Francois Hollande unveiled a plaque in his memory Sunday near the Stade de France.
Dias’ son Michael said his father was “living proof that integration is possible, necessary” to end such violence.
Learning to live again after extremists killed his father was “a personal challenge, but it concerns us all,” Dias said. “Long live tolerance, long live intelligence, long live France.”
Some people cried, others simply lit candles or laid flowers at ceremonies Sunday near the six bars and eateries where gunmen opened fire on unsuspecting crowds enjoying an unusually mild November Friday night.