IANS
PARIS, NOVEMBER 27
France held a national memorial service on Friday for the 130 people killed on November 13 in the Paris terror attack.
Around 1,000 people attended the service in central Paris, including President Francois Hollande, survivors of the attacks and victims’ families. A minute’s silence was held and the names of all the victims read out.
In his speech, President Hollande said France would “do all it can to destroy this army of fanatics”, BBC reported. “It will operate relentlessly to protect its children,” he said. Among those attending the service were the parents of British victim Nick Alexander, who said they were now “intrinsically linked” to those who had also lost loved ones.
However, not all the victims’ families accepted the invitation to attend the service at the grand Les Invalides complex that houses a military museum and Napoleon’s tomb.
In a series of coordinated attacks on November 13, the gunmen opened fire on restaurants and bars in the city and stormed a concert hall, where 89 people were shot dead.
Three more attackers blew themselves up outside the Stade de France stadium in Saint Denis, north of Paris, after staff denied them entry to a football match between France and Germany.
More than 350 people were injured in the attacks - the worst in recent French history.
At least nine people who were believed to have been directly involved in carrying out these latest attacks, are all dead.
But two more men, including key suspect Belgian-born French national Salah Abdeslam, are still on the run as a huge manhunt continues in France and Belgium.
Some of the attackers - including suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who died in a police raid in Paris last week - had lived in Brussels.
