A candle outside Le Carillon bar in Paris, one of the scenes of Friday's attack, Hundreds of Parisians on Monday gathered there to pay their respects in silence.
Amandine has never given blood before, and she tells me she’s nervous: she doesn’t like needles. But she is here on a gray Monday morning with dozens of other Parisians at the Saint Louis Hospital blood bank because she wants to do something. “I’m proud to do this, because it’s important. It’s time,” she says.
Across Paris, blood centers are packed with people like Amandine. On Saturday, more than 220,000 people offered to give blood in the Ile-de-France region, which includes Paris. That is three times the normal number. A third of them, like Amandine, for the first time.
Like some others here, she has a personal connection to the disaster: friends of friends of hers were killed on Friday. But the mood in the city is making her feel stronger. “All the people in Paris are very united,” she says. “I think we are just as one. There isn’t a difference [between us], we are just the same.”
That unity can be seen in number of people waiting in line to donate. By midmorning the line winds out of the waiting room and into the parking lot.
To cope with the crush, extra volunteers have been called in, and hospital staff have come in on their days off. Some of the people answering the phones and giving out orange juice to donors this morning, but stayed on to keep helping in other ways. One nurse calling patients says she could not find childcare, so she’s drawing blood with a 2-year-old toddler strapped to her back.
There’s another reason the atmosphere is intense at this particular donation center. Nurses and doctors at this hospital were among those having drinks across the street on Friday when one of the gunmen opened fire. Fifteen people died, with 10 more seriously injured.
At noon, the whole of France was due to observe a minute’s silence in remembrance. As the time approached, I head outside with some of the donors and volunteers. Hundreds of people are gathering, standing quietly at the scene of the attack.
Some weep. A woman kneels and prays. Others leave flowers. There are so many candles burning on the sidewalk you can smell the wax in the air.
And then something strange happens. The minute’s silence starts, and does not stop. Two minutes. Four minutes. Six. It is as if no one can bear to break this moment.
Eventually, after eight minutes, people begin applauding.
And somewhere at the back, a man’s voice begins to recite poetry. I find out later the words are by the Senegalese poet Birago Diop. You can’t hear everything from our place at the front of the crowd. But you can hear this:
Les Morts ne sont pas sous la Terre :
Ils sont dans le Feu qui s’éteint,
Ils sont dans les Herbes qui pleurent,
Ils sont dans le Rocher qui geint,
Ils sont dans la Forêt, ils sont dans la Demeure,
Les Morts ne sont pas morts.The dead are not under the ground
They are in the fire that goes out
They are in the grass that cries
They are in the rock that moans
They are in the forest, they are in the residency.
The dead are not dead.