France marks ten years since its worst ever attack on 13 November 2015 when jihadists killed 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall and around Paris.
On Sunday, hundreds of people took part in a first commemoration of the attacks, by running and walking through Paris in the March for freedom (Marche de la liberté), taking a symbolic course to pay tribute to the victims of the attack.
On 13 November 2015, ten jihadists who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State Armed group killed 89 people attending a concert at the Bataclan along with 30 people at restaurants and cafes around the concert hall and one person near the Stade de France football stadium.
Several ceremonies are to mark ten years since the attacks on Thursday, with President Emmanuel Macron expected to speak.
The names of those who were killed, as well as those of two people who took their own lives in the aftermath, have been inscribed on commemorative plaques around Paris.
The Terrorism Memorial Museum, due to open in 2029, will present objects linked to the attacks or its victims, most donated by victims’ families.
The French president at the time, Francois Hollande, declared France "at war" with the jihadists and their self-proclaimed Islamic State caliphate in Syria and Iraq, which attracted French citizens and inspired the Paris attacks.
US-backed forces defeated the last remnants of the Islamic State in eastern Syria in 2019.
The only surviving attacker, Salah Abdeslam, is serving life sentence after the nine-month trial of the attacks. The nine others blew themselves up or were killed by police.
France's anti-terror unit said this weekend that they had arrested three people as part of an investigation into a suspected terror threat linked to Abdeslam.
(with AFP)
