How Parisians are coping in a city of shadows, not light

A week after France’s worst terror attack, well-wishers and mourners still make the daily pilgrimage to leave flowers, light a candle, say a prayer or otherwise pay respects at the sites of the string of shootings and bombings that stunned the city and left at least 130 dead.

Streets that had been closed following the strikes have been reopened. Life is rapidly returning to the city’s bars and cafes. Some spots away from affected districts hardly missed a beat.

But the shadow of last week’s events still hangs over Paris, especially in hard-hit districts like the animated neighborhood behind Place de la Republique. That’s where a team of gunmen in a car brazenly shot up restaurants and other night spots, opening fire on patrons, many of them young, who were savoring time with friends and loved ones.

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The restaurants along Rue Alibert were one of three major targets in the Nov. 13 attacks, along with a packed concert hall and the Stade de France national stadium in the northern suburb of St.-Denis.

To many in the city, the assaults seemed aimed at the very essence of a civilized urban life, against a sense of camaraderie among people of varying backgrounds who gathered to enjoy music, sports and each other’s company.

“I think fear is legitimate, but we have to overcome it,” said Claude Diase, 55, a writer and area resident who daily stops by the shrines outside a pair of still-shuttered establishments, Le Petite Cambodge restaurant and, across the street, Le Carillon bar. “I’m sure this neighborhood will come back.”

At the nearby Bataclan concert hall, where more than 80 people were killed in the bloodiest of last week’s coordinated strikes, someone played a piano to the applause of those gathered outside.

The city’s mood since the attacks has been somber and defiant, edgy and composed. A rumor, or some firecrackers, caused a stampede of people the other day in the Place de la Republique.

Meanwhile, a hash-tag campaign urged everyone to head to the bistros.

The fact that the attacks were carried out by French and Belgian nationals — not foreign terrorists — has shocked many. Authorities have blamed Islamic State, the Al Qaeda breakaway faction that has attracted thousands of European recruits to its self-proclaimed “caliphate” in parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.

“The real problem is the fact it’s French people who killed other French,” said Marianne Getti, 22, a student. “The challenge for our society it’s to understand how these French people came to this point of hatred against us.”

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On Friday, authorities said a third body, as yet unidentified, had been identified in the rubble of a building destroyed in a large-scale police raid Wednesday on an apartment in the northern suburb of St.-Denis.

A day earlier, police had identified another body found in the charred hulk of the apartment as that of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian extremist of Moroccan origin who has been called the ringleader of the Paris plot. A woman described as Abaaoud’s cousin, Hasna Ait Boulachen, was killed as authorities descended on the flat — though reports that emerged Friday indicated she did not activate a suicide vest, as police initially said, and may have died when another accomplice blew himself up.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, officials from France and other European Union nations convened in an emergency session to consider several steps, including tightening gun laws, bolstering border security and denying funds to groups linked to extremism. Whether any concrete new initiatives would emerge was not clear.

A number of the Paris assailants, and the purported ringleader, had traveled to Syria and joined Islamic State, authorities said. How to stop European extremists returning from the battlegrounds of Syria and Iraq from wreaking havoc in their homelands is a major challenge of European authorities.

For some, last week’s attacks seem to signal the arrival of the Syrian conflict, now in its fifth year, in the heart of Europe. Last summer’s refugee crisis, including legions of Syrians headed toward Europe, had already brought the Syrian war closer to home.

A left wing newspaper dubbed twentysomething Parisians coming to terms with the attack — which mostly targeted young people — the “Bataclan generation,” after the targeted concert hall. The concept seeks to capture the juxtaposition of the sudden, seemingly nihilistic violence of the Paris strikes and the outwardly carefree lives of Paris’ young cafe denizens and concert-goers.

“It’s the first time I have told myself that yes, maybe we are at war,” said Ayana Merlino, 22, a marketing student. “At least it’s how I picture war in my imagination.”

She was headed to a concert Friday evening with relatives, and said she had no fears. But she also couldn’t find takers for an extra ticket, just one more indication that the anxiousness has not passed, despite the revived night life evident in bars and cafes.

Back at the Rue Alibert, outside the Le Petit Cambodge restaurant and Le Carillon bar, people were leaving their testimonies. Some had tears in their eyes as the exact hour of the one-week anniversary approached.

“Paris is light,” proclaimed one hand-written sign scrawled on a white block and dedicated to the victims, many of whose photographs were spread amid flowers and candles as a light rain fell. “You will always be in our heart.”

patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com

Twitter: @mcdneville

Special correspondent Clara Wright contributed to this report.

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