PARIS, Jan 10 ― Three days of gunshots, killings, car chases, hostage-taking and police raids have traumatised a city better known for its art, culture and cuisine.
The immediate crisis that began January 7 with the massacre of 12 people at weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo and the separate killing of a policewoman ended yesterday with police raids on two sites that killed three suspects.
The danger remains. At least one suspect is still at large and the failure of French intelligence to anticipate the killings raises the question of whether more potential attackers lurk in the capital.
“I call for you to be vigilant, to remain united and to be mobilized,” President Francois Hollande said in a speech to the nation last night after the suspects were killed.
In all, 17 victims died in the three days of violence, including the Charlie Hebdo deaths, the policewoman south of Paris and four hostages held at a kosher store called Hyper Cacher near the eastern Porte de Vincennes by the policewoman’s suspected killer.
Yesterday, near where the hostage-takers were barricaded inside the store, Menad Taberkane, a barkeeper at Le Metro on Cours de Vincennes, said he’d never seen anything like it.
‘Quiet neighbourhood’
“This is a quiet neighbourhood, we never have problems,” he said. “It makes you scared to go to work.”
While Parisians try to go about their lives and politicians call for calm, signs of the battle against terror are everywhere -- from the sirens sounding throughout the city to the large presence of uniformed and armed security officers. The greater Paris area has 9,600 police and soldiers posted at train stations, schools and landmarks.
Emmanuel, a 36-year-old who works in a shoe store on the busy Boulevard Haussmann and declined to give his last name, came face-to-face with the changed atmosphere last night.
“I tried to go to synagogue for Shabbat services, but the one I usually go to had closed because they don’t have enough security,” he said. “Then I tried another nearby and they were closed too. It certainly doesn’t make me happy to see this in Paris, for the first time since the war.”
Especially frightening was the fact that the suspects were heavily armed and had a history of involvement with Islamist groups. Nor are they all accounted for: a third member of the Charlie Hebdo killers hasn’t been definitively identified and Hayat Boumeddiene, the partner of Vincennes hostage-taker Amedy Coulibaly, is at large. Coulibaly had ties to Charlie Hebdo suspects, Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his brother, Said Kouachi, 34, police said.
Lying down
The brothers had been holed up in a building in Dammartin- en-Goele, eight miles from Charles de Gaulle airport, surrounded by France’s anti-terror forces. The area was cordoned off and schoolchildren were evacuated even before the sound of gunfire and explosions rang out in late afternoon.
About 300 students and teachers at the primary school, Le Verger des Tuileries, were told to lie down on the floor in the hallways, said teacher Julie Caron, a relative of Caroline Connan of Bloomberg TV. She said parents trying to take their children home were being turned away during the lockdown.
“It’s been very unnerving,” said a woman who gave her name as Francine and said her 13-year-old son had been evacuated from a middle school in the area. “I’ve had no contact with my son and no contact from the school. I’m not worried, look at all these police. But it’s not easy.”
‘All over’
Worries abounded in the Goutte d’Or, or Golden Drop, neighbourhood in northern Paris, home to many of the city’s Muslims as well as people with roots in a variety of African countries.
With the suspects in both murders reportedly tied to the same jihadist cell, security at the neighbourhood’s mosque was raised and bags were being searched before Friday prayers.
“There are incidents happening all over,” said Reda Laridi, 40, as he sipped coffee in a cafe on the crowded rue des Poissonniers. “It’s the day when the Muslims form a crowd, a good target for a Molotov.”
This week, a shot was fired at a mosque in the western city of Le Mans and four makeshift grenades thrown into its courtyard.
“We remain extremely mobilized in an unprecedented situation to ensure the security of all the French,” Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters near the Porte de Vincennes hostage-taking site, after the raids.
More security
In other parts of Paris, life went on as usual. At the Eiffel Tower, about 200 people were lined up to enter, about the usual number. Lights on the tower were turned off yesterday in homage to the shooting victims.
Even before the shootout at Vincennes, retailers including Carrefour SA, France’s biggest, and Galeries Lafayette were beefing up security at stores, officials at the companies said. They declined to comment on what impact the killings were having on their businesses.
The Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau said on its website that every effort will be made to ensure the safety of visitors to the city. Veronique Potelet Anty, a spokeswoman for the bureau, said it hasn’t received any feedback from tourism professionals regarding cancellations.
Trevor Whaller, 50, a retiree from Hull in England, arrived by Eurostar yesterday with his partner.
“It was worrying,” he said in front of the Galeries Lafayette store. “But we just went on with our life. You can’t stop living. You can’t, yeah?”― Bloomberg
