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France 'will never be the same' after attacks

AFP/The Local
AFP/The Local - [email protected]
France 'will never be the same' after attacks
Mayor of New York Bill de Blasio and Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo place flowers near the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Photo: AFP

The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo said on Tuesday that "nothing will ever be as before", as her counterpart from New York visited the French capital to pay his respects to the victims of the terror shootings.

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"We will not be able to pretend like it didn't happen," Anne Hidalgo told reporters, as she stood next to Bill de Blasio in a cafe on the Place de la Republique, where hundreds of thousands gathered more than a week ago in memory of the 17 people killed during the violence.
   
"We must diagnose... why we got to this, what didn't work in what we did," she said, calling "for a bit more kindness in relationships that we have with each other in this society".
   
"In the Republican motto, there is liberty, equality, fraternity. Often we forget fraternity."
   
De Blasio said Paris and New York had "walked the same path in so many ways", most notably because they were both victims of terrorist attacks.
 
 
He visited a memorial site outside the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices -- where prominent cartoonists among others were mowed down on January 7th -- and the Jewish supermarket where four people were killed during the attacks that ended on January 9th.
   
"Seeing where people lost their lives because of who they were and what they thought, because they happened to be Jewish, because they were devoted to their faith or because they happened to believe in freedom of speech, is a reminder that these values are always under threat," he said.
   
"It's up to us to protect our values and to protect every community."
 
His office added in a statement: 'The mayor will stand in solidarity with our friends in Paris and across France to send the clear message that together we will fight terrorism and anti-Semitism at every turn, and that crude attempts to intimidate free expression will not succeed.'

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