In the streets, theatres, cafes, gunshots and explosions sounded in turn – seven sites, including the Stade de France, the Place de la République and the Batacran Theatre, were attacked. On this night, 153 people were killed.
On November 13th, it was an ordinary Friday in Paris.
That night, a friendly football match between France and Germany was being played at the Stade de France on the northern outskirts of Paris, with more than 60,000 fans cheering on their respective teams. French President François Hollande also rushed to the scene to cheer on the French team.
Meanwhile, at the 1,500-seat Bataclan Theatre in Paris' 11th arrondissement, a joyous crowd is enjoying a wonderful performance by a band from eagles of Death Metal. Many citizens hang out on the Place de la République in Paris – because it is a Friday, many people choose to eat and drink with friends and enjoy the weekend in the neighborhood.
As with countless days that have passed, the Eiffel Tower, a symbol of the city, still shines, the ships on the Seine dock on the shore, and young people with different faces and complexions gather on the lawn, drinking wine and waiting for the lantern to change color at the hour.
All calm and revelry was broken around 9:20 p.m.
The capital of romance, overnight, is filled with blood, violence and fear.
Stadium The explosion took the crowd from commotion to fear
After the match, the fans who were stranded inside the stadium learned about the explosion outside the stadium through their mobile phones. Figure/CFP
At 9 p.m. French time, Chinese student Xu Zechen and his friends had rushed to the Stade de France.
In the small town of Saint-Denis on the northern outskirts of Paris, the weather in autumn is not ideal, with gusts of cold winds. Despite this, france and the last World Cup champion Germany, as well as French President François Hollande, came to watch the game, still attracted more than 60,000 fans to gather here.
Xu Zechen's attention was not attracted by the game itself - the first half was unusually tedious, neither team established an effective attack, and the fans began to entertain themselves, they followed the people around them, standing up and sitting down in turn, playing with great interest in the "human wave".
In the 17th minute of the match, there was a sudden loud noise from outside the field – urgent, short.
In the televised footage, the loud noise did not seem to cause much commotion. Even Xu Zechen at the scene mistakenly thought that it was a "gunshot" from somewhere. As France picked up the pace of attack, the heatwave of the game was quickly rekindled.
After 10 minutes, the usual second loud noise struck again, and the small French fans on the side were frightened and quickly covered their ears, and the players on the field did not know, and for a second or two, they stopped in place and were overwhelmed. Xu Zechen's fans were exclaiming and talking: What the hell happened?
In the second half of the game, Xu Zechen received an inquiry from a friend on his mobile phone, "There were two explosions on the stadium, are you okay?" "He learned that there had been two suicide terrorist attacks off the pitch.
After the game, Xu Zechen followed the crowd to the exit, and just after stepping outside the field, the crowd in front of him began to riot, and then turned around and rushed to the inside of the field, including people shouting "help".
Xu Zechen and his friends ended up trapped in the stands. At this time, the Stade de France, without the joy of victory and the carnival of the fans, people are stranded in the stands and in the stadium, full of people and cries who are running away because of fear.
Street side The shooting lasted 30 seconds like war
At a restaurant in central Paris, the shooting caused casualties. A woman crouched next to a body covered in a white cloth. Figure/CFP
The attack on the city did not end with the sound of the explosions.
From 9:20 p.m. to 40 p.m., almost every few minutes, somewhere in the city of Paris, there was an undulating gunshot.
At 21:25, there was a shooting on The Street of Bisha; at 21:29 the rue de la République was shot; at 21:38, the Rue des Charles was shot; at 21:43, there was an explosion at 253 Rue Voltaire; at 21:49 the Bataclan Theatre was shot, followed by an explosion; and at 22:00, the Rue Dei Bomarche was shot.
Lai Yun is a Chinese actor and producer who developed in France. At the time of the incident, he was having dinner with friends at the "HALL LES" in the center of Paris, and when he heard that there was a shooting nearby, he did not panic, but when he was about to pay for the bill to leave, there was a gunshot behind him, and he had to run to hide in an old warehouse nearby. His assistant director escaped by hiding in the innermost corner of another bar that had been attacked by terror.
The people on Aribel Road were not so lucky, and in the restaurant Le Petit Cambodge, Charlotte Brevo and her friends, who were eating, heard a series of violent gunshots. Just for a moment, after the bullet shattered the glass, a large number of fragments generated flew into the restaurant.
Charlotte Brevo, who was dodging around, grabbed a woman's arm in a panic, but the other party did not respond, she took a closer look, only to find that the woman had been hit by a bullet in the chest and was covered in blood.
The shootings here lasted so long that pierre Monforte, who lived nearby, was once very confused. He heard a "thumping" sound that lasted a full 30 seconds, "We thought it was fireworks."
Florence, who rushed to the scene afterwards, described the shooting as "unreal": "Everyone was lying on the ground, and no one in Little Cambodia made any movement." In the bar next to Le Carillon, everyone was lying on the floor."
One surviving witness said, "We hid in a café and blocked the front door. When we tell people what happened, they immediately choose to believe us. It was a war, and the sound of sirens rang in my ears. We waited, waiting to be safely evacuated from the coffee shop. ”
Lai Yun stayed up all night, still hiding in a friend's office in Paris, afraid to go out. He said four of his teammates had been attacked at four different locations.
theater After the wounded fell to the ground, the gunman brutally mended the gun
Crowds flocked to take shelter near the Batacran Concert Hall, and police evacuated the crowd. Figure/CFP
The most brutal killings took place at the Bataclan Theatre.
The Batacran Theatre, located in the 11th arrondissement of the eastern part of Paris, has become a prestigious rock and roll venue in recent years. In the evening, the concert hall was held by eagles of death metal.
This American rock band is good at using a lot of twisting and bass scale guitar techniques to show the atmosphere of horror, mystery and death.
At 21:49, the theater with a capacity of 1,500 people was full, and for Julian, who watched the performance, the music was enjoyable to him. The guitarist who was playing was about to take off his guitar when he turned his head and saw a group of people with weapons intruding.
Julian had been frightened by the intruders, the young faces so close to him. "One second I was listening to beautiful music, and the next second there was an attack, and it felt like even the music was full of irony and horror." Julian said.
Marc Coupris, a 57-year-old witness, used the word "massacre" to describe what happened next. "It looked like a battlefield, full of blood, full of corpses. When the shooting began, I was standing in the corner of the theater. At least two gunmen, from the entrance to the theater, strafed us below. ”
Marc Coupris said that everyone was lying on the ground, pressed against people, close to the wall, motionless, and maintained that posture for a long time.
"I don't know how long it took, waiting as long as a century." Marc Coupris said she thought she had reached the end of the world.
In the agony of waiting, Benjamin cazenoves sent two messages in a row on social networks. "I'm still at the Bataclan Theatre. Ground floor. Seriously injured! They carried out a faster attack. They slaughter everyone. One by one. Ground floor fast !!!! A few minutes later, he posted the message again: "Alive. Just kill... A bloody light... The bodies of the dead can be found everywhere. ”
Around 10 p.m., a large number of Paris police had arrived outside the concert hall, and the attackers gathered nearly a hundred people at the scene as hostages.
Surviving witnesses said the attackers strafed the crowd with AK-47 rifles, which lasted 10 minutes, "and they didn't shout anything, they didn't say a word." ”
Julien Pierce, a reporter for Eurovision who later escaped from the chaos, described that "when the crowd was knocked down by AK automatic rifles (at least 20-25 people were lying on the floor), two gunmen brutally men reloaded the wounded in a firing motion, and the small concert hall fell into a scream of despair." ”
During the more than two hours of confrontation between the two sides, a large number of police forces continued to arrive in the area around the concert hall. At 12:15 a.m., after several quick exchanges of fire, three attackers detonated their own bombs and another was killed by police.
inhabitant The address is published online to open the door for escapees
Firefighters rescue an injured citizen near the Batakran Concert Hall. Figure/CFP
Until this terrorist attack, France had not fully recovered from the pain of the last.
On January 7 of this year, the headquarters of the French satirical comic magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris was attacked by armed terrorists at gunpoint. The incident killed 12 people, including 2 police officers and 10 journalists, and injured 11 others.
One notable detail is that after the Charlie Weekly attack, The Batacran Concert Hall hung a pro-Charlie Weekly slogan: "I am Charlie."
The people of Paris were shocked by another terrorist attack, but not destroyed by fear.
To the delight of Eddie, a Chinese student, after the explosion, he saw at least dozens of Parisians on Twitter and Facebook participating in a "#porteouverte ( French: open the door) campaign. They directly posted their addresses and phone numbers on the Internet, and asked the public in need of help to contact them as soon as possible to provide shelter.
The campaign's initiator was Sylvain Lapoix, a local journalist in Paris, who said on Twitter: "Open the door for those who need it, mark your location, add #PorteOuverte, and list safe places." ”
This initiative quickly received a response from netizens. Many netizens listed their home addresses and expressed their willingness to take in strangers stranded on the street. @akm_mi say, if we don't help our families, who can help them? @Thomas Nigro was more direct: "If you need help, the door to my house is open." ”
Janyk and Pascal, two netizens, who had previously made a website that provided temporary accommodation for tourists, porteouverte.eu also came in handy at this time. Parisian netizens left their addresses, phones and emails directly on the website, and netizen Aymen also posted a traffic guide: "10 to 15 minutes walk to Charonne Street." ”
"It takes courage to publish your home address in this case." Eddie felt that at that moment, he was touched by the people of Paris.
Brother "Be a warrior or be a coward"
First responders are transporting the injured. Figure/CFP
At 11:00 p.m., the ball game in the Stade de France ended with France's 2-0 home win over Germany. But it doesn't matter anymore, no fans celebrate it.
Going home was their purest wish, but it didn't go well. Xu Zechen, who was evacuated from the French stadium, ran to the subway station for the first time. They stood in the carriage for more than half an hour because they had to wait for the police to clear the scene, and anxious people constantly exchanged messages with people nearby, with a look of pain and consternation on their faces.
Finally, near 12:30, the car started. The people in the carriage clapped and cheered, "At this moment, everyone really relaxed." ”
Eddie, who was rushing home at about the same time, saw a poster at the subway entrance, showing the towering Eiffel Tower, which was transformed into the shape of a gun by PS, which was meant to be armed against terrorism. But on this night, the metaphor gave him goosebumps.
At the Batacran Concert Hall, the members of the Death Metal Eagle Orchestra have left the scene safely and reported to fans via Facebook: "We are still determining the safety and whereabouts of the orchestra members and all the working teams, and we are as sad as all the people who have experienced this tragic event." ”
Benjamin cazenoves, who broadcast live on Facebook in the concert hall, also received many netizens who were concerned. Around 7 a.m., he updated his status. "Thinking about this night, I feel lucky... I hug you. ”
The terrorist attacks affected the traffic in Paris to some extent, and the taxis that shuttled through the ancient cities did not stop running.
On the night of the explosion, Zheng Yingying, who lived in France, worried about a business trip to Italy the next morning, and did not sleep all night, "Can you successfully reach the airport, can you call a taxi?" After waiting 15 minutes, the taxi really appeared, and she asked the driver: "So dangerous, why are you still driving outside, aren't you worried?" ”
The driver replied, "Be a warrior or be a coward." He said he wasn't the only taxi driver who worked the night shift.
Some of these drivers have turned off the meters in their cars to help people stranded on the road get home.
(This article is original to peel the onion, unauthorized refusal to reprint)
Peeling onion (WeChat ID: boyangcong123) written | Beijing News reporter Zhu Liudi Luo Ting Tu Chonghang Zhang Wei Zhou Qingshu