Attacks in Paris Shock World, and Weedsport

It’s 9:20 pm in Paris, France on Friday, November 13th. The city is bustling with nightlife; people are out enjoying dinner with friends and family, while others may be at the soccer game at the Stade de France. A concert is playing in the Bataclan, a concert venue on the Boulevard Voltaire. The Eiffel Tower is shining brightly in contrast with the starry night sky. But all of a sudden, things become very dark in the city of lights.

Paris has become a place of terror and chaos. In six different places across the city, random, vicious attacks are starting to break out. Sirens can be heard wailing from miles away in every direction, and people are crying in the streets, confused and scared about what’s happening. The entire world is being notified by their respective news channels what’s going on with use of a live feed. It’s now 1:00 am on Saturday morning, and the attacks have ended. One hundred and twenty-nine people have lost their lives, and another 352 have been wounded. In under two hours, so many families and friends have lost their loved ones. The timeline below will explain the events that occurred during the times in between 9:20 pm and 1:00am.

9:20 pm- The first attack, a suicide bombing, occurred near the Stade de France just outside of Paris, where a soccer game was being held. President Hollande of France was reported to be at the game; he was also thought to have been the suicide bomber’s original target. The bomber did not make it into the stadium before they detonated the bombs, and an innocent bystander lost their life due to the blasts.

Around 9:20 pm- At approximately the same time, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, two restaurants were ambushed by shooters. The names of the restaurants were Le Carillon and Le Petit Cambodge; people were shot at outside of Le Carillon, and eleven were shot inside of Le Petit Cambodge. One of the gunmen was reported by an eyewitness to have said “Allahu Akbar”, hinting at who may have been behind the attacks.

9:32 pm- Café Bonne Bière was ambushed by a man with a machine gun. Five people were killed and eight were wounded.

9:36 pm- Two attackers fired guns for several minutes at the terrace outside of the restaurant La Belle Équipe on the rue de Charonne. Nineteen people were killed and nine were wounded critically.

9:40pm- A man with bombs strapped to his chest sat down and ordered something in the Comptoir Voltaire cafe before detonating his vest. He was the only casualty, but fifteen others were wounded.

9:45pm- At the Bataclan theatre on the boulevard Voltaire, a mass shooting and hostage-taking took place. An American band called Eagles of Death Metal had been performing that night. Three men dressed in dark clothes entered the hall with AK-47 assault rifles. The attack lasted about 20 minutes, and grenades were reported to have been thrown. At about 10pm, around 100 hostages were taken. Two hours later, at around 12:15 am, the terrorists began killing off each hostage one by one. Altogether, 89 of them were killed.

12:20 am- Security forces were finally able to enter the Bataclan and begin looking for the attackers, two of which detonated their suicide vests. The final attacker was shot by police. All of the terror in the music hall ended at 12:58 am, when the french police ended the siege.

It’s now a few weeks later and so much has been happening in Paris, it’s hard to keep up with the news. France has been experiencing more potential threats, and the French police have been raiding businesses and homes to try and find the men (who are still alive) responsible for planning the attacks. The global response has been immense, whether it be France dropping bombs on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, or people on Twitter and Facebook putting the French flag over their profile pictures. All of the world’s biggest leaders have been at a loss with how to handle ISIS effectively.

America may be thousands of miles across the sea from Europe, but there are connections here in Weedsport that had strong responses about the attacks in Paris. Our school’s French teacher, Madame Brown, said her initial reaction to the attacks were “shock, despair, remorse, and worry.” She has always loved having the chance to bring her students over to France to experience the language and culture calling it her “goal”, but fears the recent attacks could affect that. “[It’s a] beautiful city with so many people that had nothing to do with the attacks, the politics were targeted”, she expressed.

My own mother, Maureen Gleason, lived in France for a total of six and a half years during the late eighties and early nineties. We have friends and family over there as well, and I remember seeing her eyes glued to the television screen as soon as the attacks were being livestreamed on the news. She described to me her inner feelings, and why she was so worried. “Sadness. I wasn’t surprised, but I was worried about our friends and family that still live there.”

She also explained that random terror attacks in Paris have been happening for decades. “In the mid eighties, there were bombings. Different bombs went off all over Paris, like in a café on the Champs-Élysées. We were hearing sirens like almost every day, it always turned out to be another bomb.”

Our family and friends are okay, but the same can’t be said for many others over in Europe and the Middle East.
It doesn’t really matter where you are in the world, this affects all of us. There are more countries on the news having been threatened, like Belgium and Germany, and we’ve all seen what’s happened in Mali and Beirut. So the point is, any other country, including America, has the potential to be targeted. But what you shouldn’t do is panic or give up hope. Just like the people in France, the best thing to do is stick together in solidarity. Madame Brown’s final quote are wise words to live by, “Everyone has told me not to live life in fear. Live likes it’s your last day.”