“Paris la nuit, je trouve ça plus séduisant que Paris le jour.”
“Paris by night is more seductive than Paris by day.”
Julien Coquelle is a French student in journalism at the University of Missouri. He is from Chantilly, a city near the French capital.
“Paris by day, there are so many stains, so much stuff that make you feel anxious. At night, Paris is more secret, more intimate. There is a mystery in Paris’ streets at night, when it calms down, when people stop running everywhere,” Coquelle explained. “I have magical memories on friends’ roofs, seeing Paris switching off the lights as the night goes along. You really feel at the top of the world.”
On November 13th, 2015, a busy Friday night, seven terrorists, who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, attacked restaurants and bars in a popular area. 129 people died and 300 were wounded, making it the worst attack in French history.
Garance Delvider, a French exchange student at MU, was in Lyon, another French city, when it happened. When her mother told her the Bataclan concert hall was one of the targets, she was speechless.
“I could not talk. It brought tears to my eyes because I had two of my best friends who told me they were going to the Bataclan that night for a concert they loved. I started to worry a lot… And I waited,” Delvider said.
Her friends were smoking outside when they heard yells. They escaped. This cigarette saved their lives.
Since that night, Paris has been recovering. But fear still exists. Taoues Hadour is a French teacher at MU from a Paris suburb. She says the terrorist attacks in Nice this summer made her lose faith in French authorities.
“No one wants to stay in France. We are safe nowhere. Many friends moved in smaller cities, because nothing will happen there. It’s not Paris, Lyon, Nice, Lille…” Hadour said.
Coquelle understands this feeling, but he wants to live in Paris when he’s done with school. To move forward, he’s started a new routine.
“My mother works every day in Paris. It’s silly to say but you have a feeling of worry every day. Every morning when I worked in Paris this summer, every moning, we would tell each other: be safe, and see you tonight, like magic words. To be sure we do,” Coquelle said.
Magic words for a magic city. The day after the attacks of 2015, the government announced a state of emergency that should have prevented people from going out. Despite that, hundreds went down into the streets to mourn together, show pride and empathy – and keep the streets alive.