Javier Villamor
February 3, 2026
‘Fluctuat nec mergitur,’ the motto of Paris—roughly, ‘Tossed by the waves, yet unbowed’—appears on a poster reading ‘Paris remembers,’ commemorating the 2015 terror attacks that killed 130 people and injured over 400.”
Hélène de Lauzun
Time seemed to stand still today in Paris as the city commemorated the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015, which left 132 people dead and more than 400 wounded. Official ceremonies were held at the scene of the tragedy in the east of the capital, in front of the Bataclan concert hall and at the surrounding cafés whose terraces had been targeted by the deadly commando. Ten years later, the wound has still not healed, and for good reason: the context that allowed this mass killing to take place has not fundamentally changed.
The attacks claimed 130 victims. 132, if we count the two survivors of the Bataclan, who could not cope with the trauma of the attack they had escaped and ended up taking their own lives. A crowd of strangers gathered throughout the day to pay tribute to them at the various sites targeted by the terrorists.
The commemorations began in the morning at Gate D of the Stade de France, in the presence of the family of Manuel Dias, the first of the 130 people killed in the attacks, when three suicide bombers blew themselves up in front of the stadium gates. A procession then gathered around the cafés that had been stormed. On the terraces of Le Carillon and Le Petit Cambodge, then in front of A La Bonne Bière, Le Comptoir Voltaire and La Belle Equipe, the names of the 39 victims were read out and wreaths were laid after a minute’s silence. The ceremonies then continued in front of the Bataclan, where 90 people were murdered.
President Emmanuel Macron, accompanied by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, visited each of the sites of the attacks. “Ten years. The pain remains. In solidarity, for the lives lost, the wounded, the families and loved ones, France remembers,” he posted soberly on X.
The national tribute concluded at 6 p.m. with the inauguration of a memorial garden in the heart of the capital, opposite the Hôtel de Ville, again in the presence of the head of state.
Essayist Laurent Obertone pointed out that the tragedy of November 13th was prolonged by the fact that nothing has seriously changed since the terrorist attack: “Don’t forget: the rotten men and ideas that led us here are still in charge,” he recalled in a sombre post on X.
The borders are still open, the flow of immigration continues unabated, and the Islamist threat is still not being taken seriously by the authorities, despite the countless signals that continue to be sent by those who are waging a relentless war of religion and civilisation against France, its history, and its identity. Since the 132 deaths at the Bataclan, dozens more victims of terrorism have been added to the list, as analyst Marc Vanguard points out in a long thread on X. And the complacency of the Left and the media towards Islamism is as strong as ever—if anything, it has worsened since the terrorist attack launched by Hamas in Israel on October 7th, 2024. On a public television channel on November 12th, an environmental activist went so far as to explain that terrorism was being given disproportionate coverage compared to deaths caused by air pollution.
Some people are personally suffering the consequences of this public blindness, as evidenced by the media harassment campaign against Patrick Jardin, father of Nathalie, who died at the age of 31 at the Bataclan theatre, where she worked as a lighting technician. He is now being pursued by the Left, which accuses him of ‘proximity to the far right’—when, in fact, he is simply a grieving father thirsting for justice. He recently spoke to Boulevard Voltaire, explaining that he is fighting to ensure that “this kind of attack never happens again.” He believes that the political class bears a heavy responsibility for the attack. Just two months before the attacks, on September 13th, 2015, Bernard Cazeneuve, then minister of the interior, declared: “I cannot rule out the possibility that terrorists are taking advantage of these refugee flows to come to Europe.” A few days after the massacre, he reluctantly acknowledged that terrorists “took advantage of the refugee crisis, particularly during the chaos, perhaps, for some of them, to slip into Europe.”
Patrick Jardin chose not to participate in the official tribute, as he believes that while the surviving terrorists are now behind bars, the politicians responsible have still not paid the price.
On November 11th, the rolling news channel BFM TV published an article expressing concern about “how to deal with far-right prisoners, whose numbers have been growing since November 13th.” A few days ago, revelations appeared in the press about an attempted attack planned from his cell by Salah Abdeslam, the main perpetrator of the November 13th attacks, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, using a USB stick and a computer. His ex-girlfriend has been charged with complicity in a planned attack. But according to BFM TV, the danger facing the prison service today is the increase in the number of far-right prisoners—who currently represent 58 out of 83,500 prisoners, or 0.07%. On X, MEP Marion Maréchal reiterated her proposal: the pre-trial detention of all individuals listed on the national security file (fichés S) for Islamism, a measure supported by 97% of French people. The only problem is that there are 12,000 fichés S linked to radical Islamism.
Salah Abdeslam explained that he did not want to target Muslims, only “unbelievers.” Today, in prison, he wants to open the door to victims and says he is in favour of ‘restorative’ justice. The leftist newspaper Libération welcomes what could lead to “personal encounters.” But on November 13th, 130 victims had no other “personal encounters” than that with death.
