French president Emmanuel Macron began a day of commemoration ceremonies Thursday, 10 years on from France鈥檚 worst attack, beginning at the first site targeted, the Stade de France just outside Paris.
Macron was joined by his wife, Brigitte Macron, and other senior politicians including former president Francois Hollande, who was in the stadium when the attack started.
Jihadists killed 130 people in聽shootings and suicide bombings in and around Paris on the night of November 13, 2015, with the Islamic State group claiming responsibility.
The attackers killed around 90 people at the Bataclan concert hall, where the US band Eagles of Death Metal was playing.
They ended the lives of dozens more at Parisian restaurants and cafes, and one person near the Stade de France football stadium, where crowds were watching France play Germany.
Macron was due to visit all sites of the attacks, before presiding over a remembrance ceremony at a memorial garden in central Paris.
The sole surviving member of the 10-person jihadist cell that staged the attacks, 36-year-old Salah Abdeslam, is serving life in jail. The other nine attackers blew themselves up or were killed by police.
鈥楩rance over these years has been able to stand united and overcome it all,鈥� Hollande told AFP in a recent interview.
He was in the crowd at the football stadium when the attacks erupted, and returned to join Thursday鈥檚 commemoration ceremony.
As carnage broke out 10 years ago, he was whisked out of the audience before re-appearing on national television later that night, describing what had happened as a 鈥榟orror鈥�.
He declared France 鈥榓t war鈥� with the jihadists and their self-proclaimed caliphate, then straddling Syria and Iraq.
Hollande testified at the 148-day trial that led to Abdeslam being jailed for life in 2022.
He said he remembered telling the defendants, who also included suspects accused of plotting or offering logistical support, that they had been given defence lawyers despite having committed 鈥榯he unforgivable鈥�.
鈥榃e are a democracy, and democracy always wins in the end,鈥� he said he told them.
US-backed forces in 2019 in eastern Syria defeated the last remnants of the IS proto-state that attracted French residents and inspired the Paris attacks.
Abdeslam remains behind bars and is open to the idea of speaking to victims of the attacks if they want to take part in a 鈥榬estorative justice鈥� initiative, according to his lawyer Olivia Ronen.
In Paris, survivors and the relatives of those killed have attempted to rebuild their lives.
Eva, who asked that her second name not be used, had her leg amputated below the knee after she was wounded when jihadists attacked a cafe called La Belle Equipe, killing 21 people.
She has since returned to the capital鈥檚 many cafe terraces but said she will 鈥榥ever again鈥� have her back to the street.
The names of those who were killed, as well as those of two people who took their own lives in the aftermath, have been inscribed on commemorative plaques around Paris.
A museum is to conserve their memory.
The Terrorism Memorial Museum, due to open in 2029, is to house around 500 objects linked to the attacks or its victims, most contributed by the bereaved families to curators.
The collection includes a concert ticket donated by a mother who lost her only daughter at the Bataclan, and the unfinished guitar of a luthier who was also killed at the concert.
It also contains a blackboard menu of La Belle Equipe riddled with bullet holes, still bearing the words 鈥楬appy Hour鈥�.
The events of the autumn evening have also been committed to memory in books and screenplays.
But some survivors and relatives of victims approach the tributes with apprehension.
Stephane Sarrade鈥檚 23-year-old son Hugo was killed at the Bataclan, a place he鈥檚 avoided since.
鈥業 am incapable of going there,鈥� he said, adding he would stay away from Thursday鈥檚 ceremonies.
Nadia Mondeguer, whose daughter Lamia was killed aged 30 at La Belle Equipe, said she had been in two minds about the 10-year anniversary.
鈥業鈥檝e been feeling like a fever coming over me the adrenaline starting to rise again,鈥� Mondeguer said.
She said she felt that she and other victims had been included in official ceremonies as mere 鈥榮pectators鈥�.
But she said she would go anyway to a ceremony at La Belle Equipe to see other relatives.