Paris attacks: Fear never far away in the city of tears

A young woman walks down ­Avenue Voltaire, tears streaming from her face. She makes no ­attempt to wipe them away.

A man carries two children after panic broke out among mourners who payed their respect at the attack sites at restaurant Le Petit Cambodge (Little Cambodia) and the Carillon Hotel in Paris, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015. Thousands of French troops deployed around Paris on Sunday and tourist sites stood shuttered in one of the most visited cities on Earth while investigators questioned the relatives of a suspected suicide bomber involved in the country's deadliest violence since World War II. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

A young woman walks down ­Avenue Voltaire, tears streaming from her face. She makes no ­attempt to wipe them away, but sits on a bench where a stranger seeks to comfort her.

At the Bistrot Parisien, just a few hundred metres from the cordoned-off Bataclan music hall, 30 people gather in the morning sun, hug and weep.

The barman’s wife died inside Bataclan, one of nine friends who had gone to hear the rock band Eagles of Death Metal.

This is the new normal in Paris: agony is etched on the faces of ­locals, there is an eerie silence and the grief mingled with anxiety is palpable.

The atmosphere now in Paris is different to 10 months ago when the Charlie Hebdo attack and ­kosher supermarket slaughter brought about a national defiance. After these attacks there is simply devastation. People are scared.

The rawness of the fear was ­illustrated when some firecrackers sparked mass panic that cleared the Place de la Republique of several hundred mourners within seconds. Military officers patrolling the area suddenly cocked their weapons and yelled at the crowd to disperse. Television cameras were told to turn off their lights and move away. The frightened crowd ran through the memorial candles and flowers, shopkeepers dragged down their shutters and people knocked over tables and chairs in the hurry to find a place of safety. Police were directing families into nearby buildings to hide. Minutes later police gave the all-clear.

Bridget Barraud and her four-year-old daughter Billie Rose were in the 10th arrondissement walking to one of the memorials that have been set up.

Scores of these intimate vigils of perfumed candles flickering among the bouquets of flowers dot the capital, including on the doorsteps of Le Petit Cambodge, Le Carillon, La Casa Nostra and La Belle Equipe where people were slaughtered while enjoying a ­Friday night with friends.

“I come to this restaurant all the time,’’ says Ms Barraud, pointing to Le Carillon. “It could have been me. I always stand outside and have a smoke.”

We discuss whether it was the proximity of theatres to two of the restaurants that prompted the ­terrorists to target this bohemian part of the city.

She shakes her head. “No, it is because of the smoking. Everyone here is always outside because it is like a little square and they knew it was the busiest time too, that it would be so crowded.’’

Claude Tomas, 33, said he ­ignored the state of emergency and President Francois Hollande’s call to stay inside, especially while one of the terror cell remains at large, so he could try to make sense of what had happened.

He had heard the gunfire from his apartment nearby.

“What I saw I don’t want to see ever,’’ he says.

He sees a friend arriving with some candles and they embrace. And cry.