Witness to history: Charles Miranda recalls the Paris terror attacks that changed France forever

IN our Witness To History series, reporter Charles Miranda recalls the day Paris was hit with a series of terror attacks, which he’ll never forget.

AS he stood across the road from his restaurant La Casa Nostra, the tears from 38-year-old “Safer” were only just discernible from the belting rain running down his face.

“Thing’s won’t ever be the same, the rain won’t wash this away,” the restaurateur said as he backed up under the awning of an adjacent shop to get out of the rain and out of the way of police setting up their crime scene tape.

It was a poignant scene I recall vividly that to me summed up the sentiment that continues in France today.

Defy the elements but acknowledge nothing will erase the memory.

Friday the 13th of November, 2015 will forever be a date marked in the minds of Parisians and perhaps of us all, as the night of horror a series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks across the French capital left 130 dead and almost 370 injured.

After the shooting assault by jihadists on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo earlier in the year, the city was already a changed landscape.

But that was a targeted assault against the famed satirists who mocked French society and the peccadillos of Parisians as much as they did Islam and its prophet.

Paris gunmen attacking with automatic rifles after the Charlie Hebdo shooting assault.

The November attacks challenged the very lifestyle of the French, Liberté, égalité, fraternité played out every night of the week in the outdoor terraces of the city’s bars and cafés.

It was terrifyingly random, people killed eating and drinking at restaurants, that prompted a declared state of emergency over the whole of France that has been extended until January 2017 when it is to be reviewed by France’s National Assembly.

The mere fact that such a declaration has been made and held for all of 2016 is testament alone to how the city has changed.

Rescuers evacuate people following an attack in the 10th arrondissement of the French capital Paris, on November 13, 2015. Picture: AFP

Those nights following the tragedy, strangers hugged strangers at impromptu pop-up memorials notably at Republique square but kept a weary eye and jumped at a bang or a backfiring car. Indeed when firecrackers were let off a week later in that square, we all ducked and some panicked public rushed into café’s for protection as owners locked doors and police drew guns.

Safer, who was in his restaurant the night terrorists with AK-47 shot it up killing five diners and injuring eight before travelling down the road to kill another 19 patrons of a restaurant, even asked not to be identified fearing terrorists could return to finish the job.

La Casa Nostra pizzeria in Paris, where the terror attacks occurred nearby. Picture Supplied

Many people felt the same way.

His restaurant was random, as were other venues attacked, but collectively all Parisians felt they were forever to be targeted, as Safer said everyone metaphorically heard the “dat, dat, dat, dat” of gunfire outside his family’s pizzeria as they did across the city and I believe across Europe.

The Bataclan theatre, which saw 89 people murdered, only reopened last month (November) and people have returned to the terraces but the way of life in the city feels different to me, somehow less carefree.

The truck that ploughed into a crowd on Bastille Day in Nice, France. Picture: Twitter

Last time the French were under siege 200 years ago the revolutionary battle cry was “to the barricades” and this year it’s been “tous au bistrot” (everybody to the bistro) as all walks encouraged a return to the norm.

It’s only kinda worked.

Since the attack France has suffered other assaults, defused plots and atrocities notably on the boulevard of Nice, and while the mood is still sorrowful, it is also one of defiance.

It’s a sentiment seen in other capitals, Madrid, Berlin and Brussels which has suffered jihadist attacks and no doubt sadly that will continue into the new year and be seen as the norm.

Witness to history

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