Parisians braved the cold and rain on Friday to go for drinks and make sure the lights stayed on in the fashionable, multicultural eastern areas of the capital that were hit by Islamist militants last week.
Many of the 130 victims of last Friday’s attacks were enjoying drinks after work on an unusually warm autumn night when Islamic State militants sprang from cars and sprayed them with bullets in France’s worst violence since World War II.
Tension was still high in Paris at the end of a week in which there were scores of false alarms, episodes of crowd panic and a seven-hour gunfight that left the suspected mastermind of the attacks dead.
Photo: AFP
Although some Parisians were still thinking twice about going out, about 200 figures from the nation’s cultural and media elite called on France to continue to have fun in defiance of militants who call Paris the “capital of prostitution and vice.”
“One week on, let’s turn on the lights and light up candles in our cafes, streets, squares and towns and make ourselves heard through the music that they hate,” they wrote in a tribute published in the Huffington Post on Friday.
“Make noise and shine light so they understand they have lost,” wrote the signatories, who include singer Charles Aznavour, journalist Anne Sinclair and ballet dancer Marie-Claude Pietragalla.
Many took to social media to share the hashtag #21h20, referring to the time the attackers first struck last week, and urged people to go out and make noise at 9:20pm.
In the up-and-coming 10th and 11th districts of Paris where the attacks took place, many of the usual watering holes popular with young people, artists and media types were buzzing with chatter and music on Friday.
In front of the Carillon cafe and the Petit Cambodge restaurant a few blocks away, hundreds of flowers and candles have been placed where seven days ago young couples and groups of friends were felled by assailants firing AK47 assault rifles.
“These Parisian neighborhoods that were hit are truly magical; lively, cosmopolitan, open to all the cultures of the world,” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said.
“They have always been a successful melting-pot, and they will remain so,” she told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was