PARIS: The bells of Notre Dame rang out on Thursday as Paris marked 10 years since France’s worst-ever peacetime attack, honouring the 130 people killed in a night of shootings and suicide bombings that scarred the country.

Flowers, candles and photos surrounded commemorative plaques bearing the names of those killed — and of two people who later took their own lives — at the sites struck on the night of Nov 13, 2015.

Outside the cafes, restaurants and concert hall in Paris where most of them lost their lives, officials, survivors and relatives laid wreaths after moments of silence.

“The pain remains,” President Emmanuel Macron, who led French officials in the commemorative ceremonies, wrote on X.

“In solidarity, for the lives lost, the wounded, the families and loved ones, France remembers.”

In the attacks claimed by the militant Islamic State (IS) group, the assailants killed 90 people at the Bataclan concert hall, where the US band Eagles of Death Metal was playing.

They ended the lives of dozens more at Parisian restaurants and cafes, and one person near the Stade de France football stadium, where spectators were watching France play Germany.

Family of first victim

The ceremonies began at the Stade de France, just outside Paris, where the family of the first person killed in the attacks, Manuel Dias, paid homage to the victims.

“We will never forget. They tell us to move on 10 years later, but the absence is immense,” said his daughter, Sophie Dias, in a speech.

After visiting every attack site, Macron presided over a remembrance ceremony at a memorial garden in central Paris.

Areas around the sites were cordoned off, but residents of the French capital honoured the anniversary with candles, flowers and notes at a temporary memorial at the Place de la Republique.

Adrain Aggrey said he had laid flowers at the memorial for families of the victims.

“It’s to show them that we haven’t forgotten,” he said.

The sole surviving member of the 10-person cell that staged the attacks, 36-year-old Salah Abdeslam, is serving life in jail. The other nine attackers blew themselves up or were killed by police.

“France over these years has been able to stand united and overcome it all,” former president Francois Hollande said in an interview.

The then-president was at the Stade de France when the attacks began, and was whisked out of the crowd before reappearing on national television later that night, describing what had happened as a “horror”.

He declared France “at war” with the IS and its self-proclaimed ‘caliphate’, then straddling Syria and Iraq.

Hollande testified in the 148-day trial that led to Abdeslam being jailed for life in 2022.

He said he remembered telling the defendants, including others accused of plotting or offering logistical support, that they had been given defence lawyers despite having committed “the unforgivable”.

“We are a democracy, and democracy always wins in the end,” he said he told them.

‘Restorative justice’

Abdeslam remains behind bars and is open to the idea of speaking to victims of the attacks if they want to take part in a “restorative justice” initiative, according to his lawyer Olivia Ronen.

In Paris, survivors and the relatives of those killed have attempted to rebuild their lives, but some have approached the tributes with apprehension.

Stephane Sarrade’s 23-year-old son Hugo was killed at the Bataclan, a place he has avoided since.

“I am incapable of going there,” he said, adding he had stayed away from the ceremonies.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2025