Police investigations outside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, November 14. Demotix/ Jonathan Tessier. All rights reserved.It was like spring in autumn. The weather had been turning warm, day after day, in this early November 2015 in Paris. One month later the town will host the UN Climate Conference COP21… Such unseasonable weather, the hottest November ever, must for sure have something to do with climate change.
It was an evening of football, with France vs. Germany at the Stade de France, in Saint Denis, north of Paris. Meanwhile the café’s terraces on the 11th arrondissement, the “swinging quarter” of the City, were packed with people enjoying the equable temperature. Nearby, 1500 people were gathering at the Bataclan, a well-known and popular music-hall, to attend the hard rock concert of the group Eagles of Death Metal.
But other Death Eagles (or rather Demons), were on their way to kill. In Saint Denis, the murderers were not able to enter the Stadium (where President Francois Hollande was supporting the Team), so they blew themselves up outside. The audience was evacuated from the stadium only after the end of the match, in a very well organized way. But in the centre of the city, near Republic square, it was a massacre: shooting from cars against peaceful customers in bars and restaurants, an attack on the Bataclan concert hall, with dozens of victims in no time followed by a three-hours-long hostage taking… As I write this letter, already 150 people are dead and the number will increase.
