Just as it did 10 years ago to the day, Paris awoke to bright sunshine and freezing temperatures on Tuesday, January 7. Gripped by a winter chill – and by the memory of the murderous terrorist attacks of January 7, 2015, the first day of a bloody week during which 17 people were killed by Islamist terrorists.
It was a day of commemoration dominated by heavy security and a not exactly popular atmosphere, with spectators rigorously kept at a distance from the various ceremonial sites, all “marked by sobriety, in accordance with the wishes of the families” said Paris City Hall.
On the same moment when, 10 years earlier, the Kouachi brothers, armed to the teeth, burst into the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in search of their prey, some 150 people – editorial staff survivors, victims’ families and personalities – now gathered in front of number 10 Rue Nicolas Appert, in Paris’s 11th arrondissement, where the massacre took place. The site now houses a municipal police training school.
Bicycle hoops had been installed in front of the discreet entrance a few years ago, somewhat trivializing the scene of the carnage. A plaque, affixed to the building’s façade in January 2016, pays tribute to the 11 victims. The name of Simon Fieschi, the webmaster of the satirical magazine, who was seriously injured in the attack and later found dead on October 17, 2024, had recently been added.
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