France remembers Paris attack victims

A minute’s silence was observed and the names of those who died were read out at the ceremony.

“On November 13, a day we will never forget, France was hit at its very heart”, said Hollande.

Belgium reduced the terrorism alert in Brussels from its highest possible level yesterday after Prime Minister Charles Michel said the threat of a Paris-style jihadist attack was no longer as imminent.

France and Britain are already part of a U.S.-led coalition that has been bombing ISIS targets, while Russian Federation is conducting separate airstrikes against ISIS but also against more moderate groups that oppose Assad.

In a somber atmosphere, the memorial ceremony started with Jack Brel’s song “Quand on a que l’amour (When we have nothing but love) performed by Camelia Jordana, Yael Naim and Nolwenn Leroy, three French singers of different origins”.

The Council of Europe – the Strasbourg-based European watchdog on human rights – said Friday that France would invoke exemption from the continent s rights charter after it declared a state of emergency after the attacks.

Some victims’ families and survivors, however, said they would snub the event.

People drapped in the national flag walk past a building decorated with French flags in Paris, Friday, Nov. 27, 2015.

“When the French President asks me to think hard about what more we can do, then it is a responsibility for us to think hard about it”, Merkel told journalists on Wednesday. On this occasion, there was no controversy.

As families watched images of the victims appear on a black screen – a smiling mother holding her baby, a young woman in a holiday snap, a man holding a beer, a man in tuxedo – the mood was of utter sadness and desolation.

“You were partly responsible for what happened to us”.

His message – in a speech he had penned himself rather than delegating it to speechwriters – was that France would not change.

“Our intellectuals, with a few exceptions, are incapable of getting away from their lucrative condition as media clowns. They will fail. They have the cult of death, we have the love of life”.

“We extend our love and condolences to all those who have been affected by this indiscriminate act, and are proud to stand with them in unity at the memorial service on Friday”.

Windows were draped with French flags in an uncharacteristic display of patriotism, but the locked-down courtyard ceremony at the Invalides national monument lacked the defiance of January, when a million people poured through the streets to honour those killed by Islamic extremist gunmen.