I lived for 12 years in the area targeted in last week’s Paris massacre,moved out last spring. I was two minutes absent from Le Petit Cambodge and the Carillon—my normal cantinas, and the first places to be hit—and about ten minutes from the Bataclan theater. Also close by are the Charlie Hebdo offices attacked by the Kouachi brothers in January, and the synagogues that a “pro-Palestinian” crowd tried to storm in the summer of 2014.
Not that the area’s especially dangerous. To the opposite. With its many bars and music clubs it’s generally both quiet and full of energy and fun—one of the last young,ethnically mixed neighborhood of a city otherwise atrophied. The mood is frivolous, even slightly childish—well illustrated by the attitudes of several young people in the quartier, and who,in the aftermath of the attacks, posted defiant selfies picturing themselves sitting at terraces drinking, or eating,smiling and giving the finger to potential terrorists. There’s even a hashtag for the spirit behind the posts: #terrassons les terroristes (“terrasser” means to crush).
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