10 years after the Bataclan massacre, Paris is still scarred by that night of terror

The carnage was France’s deadliest in peacetime — a national trauma likened to 9/11. The night hardened France’s security reflexes while deepening a sense of solidarity that has endured a decade later. Many Parisians think in terms of “before” and “after" and some still check for exits when they're in crowded places.

“Ten years. The pain remains,” French President Emmanuel Macron posted as he led the day of memorials, laying wreaths at attack sites and recalling “the lives cut short, the wounded, the families and the loved ones.”

Enduring pain

The daughter of the first person killed fought tears and described her “void that never closes." Sophie Dias' father, Manuel, was killed when the first bomber detonated outside the Stade de France where France was playing Germany. Speaking at the stadium gate where he was killed, she said his absence “weighs every morning and every evening, for 10 years.”

“My father loved life. He believed in freedom, in the simple joy of being together, of sharing precious moments with his family, and he instilled in us the values of the Republic. That’s what hatred sought to destroy. But that’s precisely what we carry with us today. Stronger than anything, despite the pain, despite the absence and this gaping hole. We remain standing,” she said.

Three bombers sought but failed to get inside the stadium. Security agent Salim Toorabally turned away one of them and, after they detonated their explosive vests outside, tended a wounded man.

“He had like these bolts (pieces of metal) lodged in his thigh,” Toorabally said in an interview with The Associated Press. ”There was blood. I didn’t have gloves on, and there were pieces of flesh in my hands.”

He still speaks to the man today.

Tributes trace the path of carnage

Macron and first lady Brigitte Macron — joined by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo — toured all the attack sites, talking to survivors and relatives of those killed, laying wreaths and standing in silence for the dead and hundreds more injured.

So numerous were the victims of the massacre at the Bataclan concert hall that it took four full minutes to read out all their names. The 92 victims there include two men who survived the three-hour siege but who later died by suicide. Another 39 people were killed that night by gunmen who sprayed cafés and restaurants with bullets.

“You never fully heal. You just learn to live differently," said Arthur Dénouveaux, who escaped the Bataclan and leads the victims’ association Life for Paris.

A new memorial garden and a city still carrying the night

At Place de la République, Parisians gathered with candles, flowers and handwritten notes at the base of Marianne, the national symbol, as they did in 2015.

The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral and other Paris churches rang out Thursday evening.

The commemorations culminated with the inauguration of the “November 13 Memory Garden" opposite City Hall.

Conceived with victims’ associations, the park's granite blocks rise to evoke the attack sites.

Rocker Jarvis Cocker, frontman of the band “Pulp” who has lived in Paris, spoke at the evening ceremony of being rattled by the attacks but in love with Parisians.

“The Republic isn't dead. One for all. Vive la France,” the Britpop star said in French.

City and health workers, emergency service personnel and others read out the names of all 132 dead at the evening ceremony, taking them more than 9 minutes.

The attacks reshaped France’s political and emotional landscape, triggering sweeping counterterrorism powers and years of debate over security and liberties. Hidalgo said she can no longer pass the attack sites “without seeing them through the filter of that terrible night.”

French authorities say the terror threat has evolved significantly in the 10 years since the attacks, with anti-terror police and prosecutors in France now increasingly focusing on young homegrown extremists, including children, who are radicalizing online, often in isolation.

Authorities have foiled six alleged Islamic extremist attack plots so far in 2025, involving suspects aged 17 to 22. The national anti-terrorism prosecution office is also investigating three suspected Islamic extremist attacks in 2025 that killed two people and injured several others.

A 2021–2022 trial for the 2015 attacks ended with life imprisonment for Salah Abdeslam, the lone surviving assailant, and convictions for 19 others.

Nicolas Garriga, Jerome Pugmire, Sylvie Corbet, Catherine Gaschka in Paris contributed to this report.