Ten years on, France today remembers the jihadist attacks of November 13, 2015, which left 132 dead and more than 350 wounded in Paris and its suburbs, with a day of ceremonies and the opening of a garden dedicated to the victims in anticipation of a terrorism memorial museum.

Many French people remember that autumn evening with horror. Around 9:30 p.m. on November 13, 2015, three kamikaze bombers detonated the explosives they were packed with near the Stade de France, in St. Denis, a northern suburb of the capital, where a match between the France and Germany national football teams was being played, after failing to get into the stadium because they had no tickets. A retired driver was killed.

Shortly afterwards, gunmen began shooting at bars and restaurants in busy districts of the French capital: the Petit-Cambodge, Le Carillon, La Bonne Bière, Le Comptoir Voltaire, La Belle Equipe…

At 21:40, a group of jihadists arrive at the Bataclan, a Parisian theater and venue where a Californian hard rock band known by the name of Eagles of Death Metal was playing. The first victims fell to the pavement, then gunmen stormed in and began firing into the concert venue. The nightmare lasted nearly three hours, until special forces intervened.

The attacks, for which the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility, claimed the lives of 130 people – including 90 in Bataclan – and injured more than 350 others. Two people who survived in Bataclan later committed suicide, bringing the official death toll to 132.

The day of commemoration ceremonies will follow the same gruesome course. French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to go to each of the sites where the attacks were committed.

He will begin by paying tribute to Manuel Dias, the Portuguese pensioner who was the first victim of the jihadists, and the victims of the stadium attack at 11:30 a.m. (local time; 12:30 p.m. GMT).

In Paris, ceremonies are planned at each of the locations where attacks took place, from the eastern part of the capital to Bataclan, between 12:30 and 14:30 (13:30-15:30 GMT).

Eiffel Tower Flotation

The ceremonies will be broadcast live in Place de la République, an iconic gathering place for residents of the French capital, where the Paris municipality has invited citizens to make a “gesture of remembrance” by leaving “candles, flowers or a few words”.

A garden in honour of the victims is expected to be inaugurated towards the end of the day behind the Hôtel-de-Ville, in the heart of the city.

The Eiffel Tower was lit up in the colours of the French national symbol yesterday just after dark and the same will be done today, according to the municipality.

For François Hollande, France’s then socialist president, who on the fateful night watched the match inside the Stade de France with then German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier sitting at his side, today’s ceremonies are dedicated above all to “the survivors and the loved ones of the victims”: “Our duty to them is this: To never forget,” he told Agence France-Presse.

Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving part of the jihadist group, was sentenced in June 2022 in France to serve a life sentence. The other nine members of the group were blown up or killed by French law enforcement forces.

Annus horribilis

The attacks had taken place late in a year marked by a series of terrorist attacks in France by jihadists – on the weekly satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris on 7 January (12 dead, including cartoonists Cabu, Charb, Honoré, Tignous and Wolinski), a municipal police officer in a suburb of the capital on 8 January, the hostage-taking in a Jewish shop in Paris on 9 January (4 dead), the murder of a 32-year-old mother in a car park near Paris on 19 April, and the beheading of a businessman on 26 June in St. Quentin-Falavière (south-east).

On 21 August, a Moroccan man who had sworn allegiance to IS boarded the Amsterdam-Paris train in Brussels, armed and carrying a bottle of flammable liquid. He seriously injured a passenger before he was overpowered by other passengers, including two US soldiers in civilian clothes who were on leave and on vacation in Europe.

A new museum-mémorial du terrorisme (MMT) is expected to open in late 2029 or early 2030 in Paris. It will be largely dedicated to the attacks of 13 November 2015.