Five years after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the attack on Friday September 25 in Paris near the former premises of the newspaper, reopens "scars" in the neighborhood.

Chantal was repairing a leak at her home, near Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, in the 11th arrondissement, when she heard "sirens blaring" outside shortly before noon.

"The first thing I said to myself was: 'It's starting again. I looked back five years" in the January 7, 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people were killed.

"The memories come back to the surface. Between that and the Covid, we live really not nice times" she adds.

While specifying that since the beginning of September and the start of the January 2015 attacks trial, he has "a kind of premonition".

"I felt it inevitably had to be this way."

For Denise Hamon, a retiree who has lived for several years in this lively district near the Place de la Bastille, old memories have also come to the surface.

It necessarily reminds us of the past, but it is not the same thing, it is less strong "since the record is less than five years ago, with two people injured." But we say to ourselves that by going out , something can always happen to us, ”she says.

"It hurts"

"The neighborhood still has scars. To relive things like that, in addition to full trial, it hurts" abounds Fred Rollat.

This father also had a thought for his daughter Margo, educated at the Anne-Franck college, not far from there.

He was warned that she was confined in the establishment by a message from the town hall of Paris.

“We were told that there was a problem with people with a knife, to stay in the yard,” says Margo.

As soon as the confinement was lifted, Fred went to look for her "to reassure her and reassure me".

Sabrina has just picked up her 2-year-old son from the nursery, before picking up her two other children, 9 and 4, from school.

“It's a relief. I work next door, I heard the sirens, I thought, 'something's going on'. Life goes on, but what happens is not easy. The wait ( before I could pick up her children) was not easy either, but I was reassured when I knew they were safe. "                

"We don't want to live here anymore"

For Fred, the 2015 attack “united in pain” the residents.

"The neighborhood is suffering but sticks together, helps each other. We all went to the demonstration with our little support signs 'Je suis Charlie'. Having experienced things brings us closer," he explains.

Others want to leave the neighborhood, like Céline, who pleads against "lax justice".

"What has just happened is revolting, heartbreaking, sad. Of course it wakes things up, we still remember it. We no longer want to live here, or in France for that matter," he says. she.

Gilles and Say are getting ready to pack up for good, after 25 and 40 years respectively in the neighborhood.

They had just made the inventory of fixtures of the exit of Say's apartment when, around 11:50 am, boulevard Richard-Lenoir, they saw "puddles of blood, cops running in all directions, firefighters ".

"It reminded me of poor Monsieur Merabet", the peacekeeper killed on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir by the Kouachi brothers after their attack on Charlie Hebdo, said Gilles.

“A lot of people left the neighborhood after 2015: as the crow flies, we are 50 meters from Charlie Hebdo, and 150 meters from the Bataclan. During the attack (against the Bataclan on November 13, 2015), I heard the gusts shake the windows. We are getting out of Paris, because we have never recovered from the attacks. "

With AFP

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