France, 2 Weeks After Paris Attacks, Observes National Day of Mourning

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/world/europe/france-paris-terror-attacks-day-of-mourning.html

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LONDON — France, still reeling from deadly terrorist attacks two weeks ago, held a national day of mourning on Friday, centered on a memorial service in Paris that was tinged with patriotism, solemnity and no lack of defiance.

About a thousand people, including President François Hollande, attended the service in the courtyard of Les Invalides, a former military hospital in central Paris that houses Napoleon’s tomb and a military museum.

At least 10 survivors in wheelchairs lined up in front of the stands in the open-air courtyard, which was packed with the families of victims and of those wounded.

Addressing the crowd, Mr. Hollande said that the 130 victims of the terrorist attacks of Nov. 13 represented “130 laughs that we won’t hear anymore, 130 voices that went quiet forever.”

“These women, these men, embodied the happiness of life,” Mr. Hollande continued. “They were killed because they were life, they were shot down because they were France, they were slain because they were freedom.”

Those in attendance observed a minute of silence as the names of all the victims, who Mr. Hollande noted came from 17 countries, were read out. Mr. Hollande said that most of the victims were younger than 35. They came from Chile, France, Germany, Morocco and the United States, among others.

The names included Manuel Colaço Dias, 63, a retired chauffeur and avid soccer enthusiast; Matthieu Giroud, a professor of geography at the University of Marne-la-Vallée, who had a 3-year-old son, Gary, and a baby girl expected in March; Nohemi Gonzalez, 23, a vivacious first-generation Mexican-American from California, who was studying industrial design; and Hodda Saadi, 35, a bubbly yoga-loving French restaurant manager with Tunisian roots.

The simultaneous attacks on Nov. 13, which spanned from the Stade de France, the national sports stadium on the northern edge of the city, to bohemian enclaves in central Paris popular with young people, have stirred deep anxieties in France. The assaults have stoked fears about security and the threat of Islamic extremism emanating from France’s impoverished suburbs. They have also unnerved a country that was already on edge after terrorist attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in January.

Mr. Hollande vowed that the country would do everything in its power to destroy “this army of fanatics” and protect its children, adding that France would not shy from holding concerts and sporting events.

“We know the enemy, it is hate, which kills in Bamako, in Tunis, in Palmyra, in Copenhagen, in Paris and has killed in the past in London or Madrid,” he said.

Mr. Hollande also paid tribute to the people wounded during the attacks, and called for the French to embrace hope.

The terrorists “have a cult of death,” he said. “But we have a love of life.”