It’s 6PM, and I’m walking home to the Latin Quarter after
meeting a friend for coffee. We met in a café close to Les Halles, and did a
little vintage shopping in the Marais. There’s a baguette tucked under my arm. To
all intents and purposes, this is a normal day, but there are many signs that
life is far from normal here in Paris.
To begin with, there are the sirens. A near constant stream
of them, every ten minutes or so since the morning of the 7th of
January, when the initial attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices occurred. Often, they fade into the background, just
another aspect of noisy Parisian life. As my friend notes, “it could just be a
robbery somewhere”. But the numerous convoys of police cars, including many
plain-clothes cars (and even, in a bitterly humourous moment, an ordinary bus
topped by a comically small blue flashing light), would indicate otherwise.
Whenever one goes past, people look up from their newspapers and phones, trying
to guess where it is going and why. Any one of them could mean a new attack
somewhere, one that they haven’t found out about on Twitter yet.
In a city on lockdown, with four separate surprise attacks
in the space of three days, there’s a constant sense of suspense, a morbid
“where next?” Most people check the news more compulsively than ever before. If
they’re like me, they assess the distance of each new attack from their home,
and the homes of their loved ones. Each day brings new and tragic news, another
blow to the city of Paris.
Life continues normally for the most part. People here have
no choice but to continue with their working week, not cower in fear in their
homes. There are, however, constant reminders of the danger of the situation.
Drinking wine with my girlfriends at Trocadero, our giggles are silenced as a
group of at least 20 gendarmerie walk by, blank-faced, glinting rifles poised
for action. Exiting the metro at Châtelet, I can feel the armed soldiers
assessing my face, my walk, my bag, for signs of suspicion. Entering a museum, I’m met with a brusque
“spread your legs”, and I’m frisked and scanned.
A local student I spoke to said “I was with two Muslim
friends, and when we changed trains at Republique, 5 policemen stopped us,
searched us, and asked for our IDs. I didn’t have mine, so they ran my name
through the database to ensure I wasn’t wanted.” It may be of interest to note
that I, a Caucasian female, was not stopped by the police at Republique the
previous evening. France’s polarised religious tensions, which already run so
high, have been reignited by the week’s events. Three attacks on Muslim places
of work and worship happened yesterday, and the hashtag “Je Suis Ahmed” was
created in solidarity. Whether anti-Muslim, anti-Islamist or pro-Muslim, everyone
has a point of view on the issue.
There’s a sense of constant suspicion, but also of defiance:
huge banners are placed on buildings and monuments, posters have been stuck up
over regular adverts, social networks are inundated with posts, all reading the
same three words: Je Suis Charlie. You only have to turn on the news to see the
worldwide protests, but here the sentiment is tangible. On the other hand,
there is a backlash quietly simmering away. Although a million copies of the
magazine will reportedly be published next week, questions are beginning to be
asked – quietly, not wishing to be unpatriotic or condone the atrocities –
about whether Charlie Hebdo’s satire was an appropriate expression of free
speech, or an outlet which took the joke too far and caused serious pain, for
example, by mocking the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram or portraying France’s
black Justice Minister as a monkey.
Now that the three original suspects, and today’s gunman,
have been apprehended, the drama seems to be over, and the people of Paris are
taking time to mourn. As I walked home, the bells of Notre Dame were ringing
out, and people stopped to listen, or to sit quietly and contemplate what had
happened. Yesterday was a national day of mourning, with flags tied up with
black ribbon, the Eiffel Tower’s light extinguished, and all government-run
Twitter feeds marked with a black band in their icons. Paris’ celebrated joie de vivre is subdued. As the sun set
over Paris, there was a sombre feeling in the air, but an assurance that France
will never back down in the face of barbarity. As professed in a statement from French President Franҫois Hollande : "Nous sortirons encore plus
forts. Vive la République et vive la France." *
* “We emerge from this even stronger. Long live the Republic and
long live France.”
