By Hajer M’tiri
PARIS (AA) – A year after deadly terrorist attacks rocked Paris, France on Sunday commemorated the victims with somber ceremonies held amid tight security.
President Francois Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo unveiled commemorative plaques featuring the victims’ names at each of seven attacked sites which included cafes and restaurants, the Bataclan concert hall and Stade de France in Seine-Saint-Denis.
One hundred and thirty people were killed and hundreds injured in the coordinated attacks on Nov. 13, 2015 carried out by terrorists linked to Daesh.
A minute of silence was observed on Sunday at each site and the names of the victims were read out.
Michael Dias, son of Manuel Dias who was killed at Stade de France, gave a speech remembering his father. Dias said living after the attacks was “a personal challenge, but it concerns us all”.
“We must fight terrorism by knowledge, by intelligence,” Dias added.
-Weekend of tributes-
The first official tribute to the victims took place at Stade de France on Friday night at a 2018 World Cup qualifying fixture between France and Sweden. A minute of silence was held in homage to the victims before kick-off.
Saturday saw the reopening of the Bataclan music venue — where 90 concertgoers were murdered — with a performance by British rock star Sting.
The government is also to unveil a website displaying thousands of tributes collected at memorial sites which sprung up after the attacks.
A victims’ association — 3onze15 Fraternite et verite — called on the French public to place a lit candle in their windows “as a show of support and to also say ‘I won’t forget'”.
According to French health officials, at least 600 people are still receiving counseling for psychological trauma. Of those wounded, as many as 20 are still receiving medical treatment.
Nine of the known attackers and four key accomplices are dead, while eight suspects are in custody in France and six elsewhere, including two in Belgium.
The sole surviving suspect, Belgian-born French national Salah Abdeslam, was arrested in Brussels in March and extradited to Paris, where he remains in custody.
