French people commemorate Charlie attacks, one year on

French citizens and sympathisers from other countries flocked on Sunday (January 10) to the Place de la Republique, a square in Paris, to mark one year since the deadly Islamist militant attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.

Police surrounded the area, and searched people before they were allowed to enter the square.

France has been on high alert ever since the shootings which took place last January at the Charlie Hebdo office and at a Jewish supermarket in which 17 people died over three days.

Security concerns were further heightened in November, when 130 people were killed in the capital in coordinated shootings and suicide bombings that targeted a music hall, bars and restaurants and a soccer stadium.

President Francois Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo layed a wreath by the Paris statue of Marianne, symbol of the French republic, which has become a shrine to the 17 victims of the January 2015 attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish deli and the 130 victims of the November shootings.

Hundreds of sympathisers from Paris and across France joined the ceremony, reflecting on the Charlie Hebdo attacks and how it has violated one of the country’s most cherished values.

“This is to remember the people who lost their lives for the freedom of expression, which symbolises our country’s identity,” a Parisian resident, Jean-Pierre Musli said.

Some sympathisers, like Fabienne Perry from the city of Epinal in eastern France, said it was important to join the commemoration.

“I am from a generation who did not know war. But I will be part of a generation who has known terrorism and unfortunately, we will live with it for a long time,” Perry said.

For those living in Paris, like England native Susan Walton, nothing much has changed one year after the attacks.

“I don’t think it has, I don’t think it’s changed (France). I don’t think the people have changed. The government are doing some strange things, I don’t think the people have changed,” Walton said, referring to a bill proposing to strip the citizenship of French convicted of terrorism.

Neither Hollande or Hidalgo spoke at the ceremony, but veteran French rock star Johnny Hallyday, accompanied only by a guitar, sang a song about “A Sunday in January” about the march last year, which brought out the biggest crowds in Paris since the liberation of Paris from Nazi Germany in 1944.

Led by Hollande and several world leaders, 1.6 million people marched in solidarity with the victims last January 11.

The Sunday morning ceremony at Place de la Republique will be followed by a demonstration in the afternoon.