“I had to relearn how to interpret all the sounds around me,” recalls Sebastien Lascoux. “The noises of the street, any sudden sound that makes you jump. A part of me died that night and stayed in the Bataclan.”
It has been ten years since gunmen stormed into Paris’ famed concert hall and opened fire on 1,500 people. Ninety people, including one of Sebastien’s friends, died in the assault before police were able to subdue the attackers.
A decade on, Sebastien, 46, is still unable to go to crowded places or enclosed cinemas. Loud noises remind him of gunshots.
“I used to go to a lot of concerts with my friends. The theatre and the cinema were places I loved. But ten years later, I don’t know if I’ll ever go back.”
Sebastien’s friend was shot while trying to shield another member of their party from the gunfire as three assailants, armed with Kalashnikov-style assault rifles, gunned down civilians entirely exposed in the open hall.
Some survivors managed to climb over others, or to escape via an emergency exit with the stoic guidance of a security guard. Others hid in offices or toilets without anywhere to run until heavily armed police arrived.
The attacks shook Europe into a frenzy of action. Anxiety fostered an uptick in anti-migrant and Islamophobic sentiment, and terror fears saw the ushering in of cross-border intelligence sharing, police raids and large-scale surveillance.
The scars run deep. Victims have said in the years since that they feel lucky to have survived. Others still bear the trauma but have found solidarity in survivor groups.
The country remains in a state of high alert. Earlier this week, police in France arrested a woman and two accomplices suspected of planning an attack on a bar or concert hall on the eve of the anniversary of the Bataclan massacre.
The assault on the Bataclan was one of several attacks that occurred simultaneously across France on the evening of 13 November, 2015.
Across Paris, gunmen driving around the city in black Seat cars stopped at bars and restaurants and opened fire on diners. Elsewhere, suicide bombers attempted to enter the 80,000 capacity Stade de France stadium with explosive vests, with President François Hollande in attendance.
One was stopped by security and blew himself up near an entrance, killing himself and a passer by. A second detonated outside a different entrance, and a third did the same at a fast-food outlet nearby just before 10pm.
Across the city, Parisians sheltered in bars, restaurants and cafes as gunmen fired indiscriminately upon terraces. As the trio of attackers prepared to storm the Bataclan concert hall at the northern end of Boulevard Voltaire, another suicide bomber, identified as Brahim Abdeslam, detonated explosives on the crowded terrace of Le Comptoir Voltaire restaurant to the south, where couples and groups had gathered on a cold Friday night to end the week together.
Incredibly, while several people were injured in the explosion, nobody died.
The Bataclan was host to the Californian rock group Eagles of Death Metal that night, selling out the 1,500-capacity hall. Doors opened at 9pm, and within 40 minutes the three attackers had entered with Kalashnikov-type assault rifles through the main doors and the back of hall.
They were later identified as Omar Ismail Mostefai, 29, Samy Animour, 28, and Foued Mohamed-Aggad, 23.
It was more than two and a half hours from the first gunshot until the last. A police officer shot one of the gunmen, whose suicide belt detonated. The other two blew themselves up.
Islamic State took responsibility for a string of attacks across the city that night, including at the concert hall. A total of 132 people lost their lives. Some 400 people were hospitalised with injuries.
The aftermath
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, President Hollande declared a state of emergency. Around 10,000 soldiers were deployed to sensitive areas including train stations and places of worship. The military was given an extra €2.2 billion in 2016, in part to help deal with the new threats. Police, meanwhile, carried out thousands of property searches without judicial review. Hundreds of people were considered a threat to national security and required to report several times a day to a police station.
Over time – after other Islamist attacks, including a truck rampage in 2016 in Nice and the 2020 beheading of a schoolteacher – those temporary measures got embedded into law.
When Emmanuel Macron replaced President Hollande, he talked of “restoring” the freedoms of the French. But his government pushed through a bill allowing prefects to order “search and seizure operations” and to close down places of worship. In select security zones, people could be subjected to identity checks and searches. Amnesty suggested the state was overreaching.
Anxieties around the terror threat grew in France and abroad. In 2016, 30 per cent of respondents polled by Eurobarometer said terrorism was the second most important issue facing France, after only unemployment, according to CNN. This had risen 17 per cent from 2015. Opinions also hardened on immigration, coming fourth with 13.7 per cent. In Europe, scrutiny fell on the ‘refugee crisis’ and the policies of then German chancellor Angela Merkel welcoming those fleeing war into Europe.
A survey of 10,000 people from 10 European states published in 2017 showed that an average of 55 per cent of people agreed that all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped. Twenty per cent disagreed. Chatham House noted that, with the exception of Poland, “these countries have either been at the centre of the refugee crisis or experienced terrorist attacks in recent years”.
The think tank went on to note that in most of the European countries polled, the radical right was looking to “mobilise this angst” over Islam in upcoming elections. Europe reeled from the attacks, and fear congealed into indiscriminate hate.
Growing anxiety gave legitimacy to the state expanding its powers. The CEPS think tank assessed at the time that the “acceptance” of a link between cross-border movements and terrorism had given new life to public policies driving large-scale surveillance and intelligence-driven law enforcement.
The wider continent responded in kind, and European nations began to collaborate more on security and intelligence gathering. France and Belgium began to collaborate through a ‘Taskforce Fraternité’, coordinating through Europol. Within a year, information gathered led to 800 intelligence leads and more than 1,600 leads on suspicious financial transactions.
Reflecting on the legacy of the 2015 attacks, Amnesty France concluded this year that “measures intended to be exceptional” had become “the norm”.
‘France was struck by deadly attacks that left an indelible mark on the nation,” it said. “Over time, these attacks have further impacted our fundamental rights and freedomgs through the adoption of numerous security laws.”
Today, concerns still linger in Europe. The 2015 attacks in Paris were a horrifying assault on French society and freedoms. Fear and anxiety marred the years that followed, informing policy decisions.
But offering a beacon of hope, the Bataclan defiantly reopened in November 2016, a year after the attacks, with a performance from Sting. Today, it continues to host live music.
