A vigil was held at Leicester’s Clock Tower on Sunday the 15th of November to mourn the deaths of one hundred and twenty nine people, who were killed in terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday the 13th.
We spoke to some people who attended the vigil, one French student told us: “France is my country, this is where I come from, it is very important for me, my country is the epitome of liberty, and what happened was such a tragedy it should never have happened, this is an event to actually come here and pay our respects and that’s why I think it’s very important to me and close to my heart to pay my respects”.
A Muslim woman was very saddened by the events on Friday, and she told us: “Shock, sadness, pain. We want to show the French people we share that pain, you know we may be in Leicester, we may be from different communities, but we feel and we share that pain, we pray for them all and we stand with them all”.
A passer by paid his respects and afterwards he spoke to us, he had this to say: “Terrorists are the enemy of all mankind, no matter what you believe in, no matter what you are not satisfied for, it’s not reason to just kill people on the street”.
Another French student spoke to us saying: “I’m here to address my condolence to all the people who died in Paris, because it is my country, and also for everybody in the world who suffer throughout war. We are all human and we must stop killing people for money, for religion, for everything”.
At 21:20 the first of six incidents took place, as people were watching the France v Germany football game, a suicide bomber was outside the Stade De France, and after being searched by security staff, he stepped back and detonated the explosive vest killing one passer by.
French President Francois Hollande was attending the game at the time and was swiftly escorted away from the scene after a second suicide bomber detonated his vest at another entrance at 21:30. Twenty minutes after the two explosions, there was yet another at a fast food outlet close to the stadium.
The next wave of attacks occurred at 21:25 at two close by Restaurants where fifteen people were shot dead by a group armed with assault rifles.
At 21:32 five more people were murdered at a busy restaurant hub when attackers sprayed rounds into the windows.
21:36 saw yet another shooting at a restaurant, killing 19 people.
A suicide bomber detonated his device at 21:40 on the Boulevard Voltaire, seriously injuring one person.
At the same time, the Bataclan Theatre was attacked with over 80 people shot by three men with assault rifles, the police stormed the building and killed one, but the remaining two detonated their explosive vests.
