Exclusive: I Was Right There in Paris When Terror Struck

“My first thought was yet another American incident. But then we got to know. It was in Paris,” she writes.

On the first anniversary of Paris terror attacks, The Quint is republishing this first-person account of that fateful day.

Let me tell you where I was on Friday night.

At 9.20pm when the first explosion was heard at the Stade de France in the suburb of Saint Denis, my friend and I were settled inside a little cinema just two metro stations away, watching the premiere of a Tunisian film as part of the 10th annual festival dedicated to cinema in the suburbs.

By 9.53pm, when the third explosion is said to have occurred, the movie was reaching its end and my friend and I were restless to leave, hungry for dinner. At around 10.15, we hopped onto the line 13 that connects Saint Denis with Paris, discussing the movie as the train took us closer to the city.

A few minutes after passing the metro station for the Stade de France, my friend received a message asking if she had heard about “the shooting.” My first thought was, yet another American incident, no doubt.

But then the information began to come in. It was in Paris! The 10th and 11th arrondissements. The Stade de France we had just passed.

My friend switched trains a few stops later and I was left alone on the 13, looking at other passengers’ faces for signs of awareness but there was none. There is no internet underground and so no one seemed to have heard the news yet.

As I changed trains on the Left Bank, I heard the announcement that three major stations in the 10th and 11th arrondissements were closed. As each familiar name was announced, it dawned on me that something major was happening but I had no idea what.

By 11pm I was finally above ground, frantically texting friends and checking Twitter. At this time the shooting incidents were just being reported, the hostage situation at the Bataclan concert hall was in full swing.

It usually takes me ten minutes to get to my home from the metro station but that night I took twenty, unable to look up from my phone, unable to tear my eyes away from each Tweet describing the horrific events unfolding just across the river. Around me, people sat nonchalantly in cafes, apparently unaware as yet.

The 10th and 11th arrondissements of Paris are two of the trendiest and most popular neighbourhoods, particularly among young people in the city. As a student, I myself have spent hours walking through the area, frequenting its hip restaurants, bars and cafes or just sitting by the canal and watching the world go by. These arrondissements are really the heart of young, fun Paris - liberal, progressive and open to all.

Imagine then the shock and horror of realising that the streets you yourself have walked on are now soaked in blood; that the iconic venue you were planning to visit for a concert in just a few weeks is now the site of carnage on a scale as never seen before in the city.

Like everyone else in Paris, I stayed up almost all night, constantly refreshing Twitter and the live blogs of French newspapers like Libération and Le Monde. I woke up the next morning to the silence of a Saturday, it was simply surreal to think about the people who lost their lives on what should have been a normal Friday night.

In the statement by ISIS claiming credit for the attack, they call out the alleged “perversity” of the people they killed, people who were simply out in full force on a Friday night, dancing, drinking and having a good time, as we all do in Paris every Friday night.

Because this is the thing about living in Paris – culture is everything, whether you spend your time at a bar or a club or a bookstore or a cinema (as I did that Friday).

It seems that the purpose of the attacks was to punish young, fun Paris, to blanket the city’s vibrant cultural centre with a dark cloud of fear. And indeed in the hours following the attacks, the immediate advice was to go home, go home immediately.

As I write this, a full day has passed since the attack and a number of bookstores, museums, restaurants and cinemas remain closed, in solidarity but also in fear because we’re all still a little unsure of what is to come.

But the sun is out now and Parisians are slowly reclaiming their city, visiting the scenes of the attack to lay out flowers and candles in memory of the victims and sitting at terraces in those very neighbourhoods.

It will take time for things to return to normal, for the weird atmosphere in the air to dissipate. But as we all go outside, returning to our favourite places in those very neighbourhoods that were attacked, we will make it very clear that this is still our city, a city for the free and the liberal, for lovers of culture and art and wine and food, and no act of cowardly terrorism will ever change that.

(Maria Thomas is pursuing a Masters in Journalism and International Affairs at Sciences Po in Paris. Her Twitter handle is @MariaAjitThomas.)