Folks lay flowers and lightweight candles in tribute to the victims of the 2015 Paris assaults at a short lived memorial at Place de la République in Paris on Wednesday.
Ludovic Marin/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
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Ludovic Marin/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
PARIS — Arthur Dénouveaux’s reminiscences of Nov. 13, 2015, aren’t precisely hazy. Nor are they excellent.
“What I keep in mind from that night time are a couple of very clear photos,” he says.
Dénouveaux was one in all round 1,500 folks contained in the Bataclan live performance corridor to see the American rock band Eagles of Dying Metallic, when gunmen linked to the Islamic State opened fireplace.
What he remembers subsequent are fragments.
There was the muzzle flash popping out of the gunmen’s Kalashnikovs. Being pushed to the ground as the group scrambled. A woman “fully misplaced,” staring towards the shooters earlier than others pulled her down.
Then Dénouveaux remembers crawling outdoors.
“Discovering myself beneath the night time sky in Paris,” he says, “and saying to myself, ‘Hey, I am free once more.'”
Throughout Paris that night time, 130 folks have been killed at cafés, the nationwide soccer stadium and the Bataclan. Ten years later, France continues to be wrestling with easy methods to keep in mind the deadliest assault on its soil in trendy historical past and easy methods to reside with it.
The nation has constructed an in depth system of remembrance. There have been books, documentaries, plaques and memorials throughout the town. A landmark 10-month terrorism trial led to 2022 with the conviction of 20 males, together with the one surviving member of the group that carried out the assaults.
Arthur Dénouveaux is the president of Life for Paris, a assist group for victims of the Nov. 13, 2015, assaults. He says the group plans to disband after the tenth anniversary.
Rebecca Rosman for NPR
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Rebecca Rosman for NPR
On Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron visited every of the assault websites earlier than inaugurating a brand new memorial backyard behind Paris Metropolis Corridor. On the Place de la République this week, folks positioned flowers and lit candles at a makeshift memorial.
For some, like Paris resident Anaelle Baheux, who lives simply steps from one of many cafés attacked that night time, these rituals nonetheless matter.
“It is reassuring to see that folks did not overlook what occurred,” she says.
However even because the rituals deepen, new analysis reveals the main points of that night time are already fading from collective reminiscence — and a examine is providing insights into why some folks get well from post-traumatic stress dysfunction, or PTSD, extra simply than others.
Denis Peschanski, a historian, has been co-leading a 12-year examine inspecting how the Nov. 13 assaults are remembered throughout French society. The undertaking has adopted practically 1,000 folks — survivors, victims’ households, first responders and atypical residents — interviewing them at common intervals to trace how their recollections change over time.
“It is an fascinating query, why did folks overlook,” Peschanski says.
He says one sample stands out: Whereas most individuals nonetheless keep in mind the Bataclan vividly, their recollections of what occurred on the cafés and the nationwide stadium are “foggier,” if not forgotten altogether.
For survivors from these websites, Peschanski calls this a “double peine” — a double punishment. They reside not solely with trauma, but additionally with the sensation that their a part of the story has pale from public reminiscence.
Alongside the nationwide reminiscence examine, a group of neuroscientists has spent the previous decade learning trauma on a person stage, monitoring about 200 survivors via common MRI scans and psychological assessments.
Pierre Gagnepain, one of many lead researchers, says early remedy approaches typically discouraged the thought of deliberately making an attempt to suppress traumatic reminiscences.
“For a very long time, folks thought that suppression was not good, that making an attempt to dam reminiscence made issues even worse,” Gagnepain says. “Folks used to say it will trigger much more intrusive reminiscences.”
However their preliminary findings recommend the alternative: suppression can, in truth, be a part of restoration.
“What’s vital to grasp is that forgetting — or suppression — doesn’t suggest you do not keep in mind what occurred to you,” Gagnepain says. “It is about making the reminiscence much less current, much less vivid, much less accessible. Folks can nonetheless describe what they went via. It is simply that the reminiscence turns into much less intrusive, much less invading.”
The science means that reminiscence blurs not as a result of folks do not care, however as a result of the thoughts adapts.
MRI findings from this examine present that when reminiscence management networks start to get well — that means when sure neural connections are strengthened and the mind’s potential to inhibit intrusive ideas is restored — survivors of traumatic occasions are much less more likely to undergo persistent intrusive signs of PTSD.
The Marianne Statue at Place de la République in Paris lit up with the colour of the French flag on Nov. 12, 2025.
Rebecca Rosman for NPR
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Rebecca Rosman for NPR
However not everybody. A few third of survivors within the examine stay “continual” instances, caught in a state the place concern and reminiscence stay tightly linked.
Bataclan survivor Arthur Dénouveaux wasn’t a part of the MRI analysis, however he acknowledges the excellence. He says his private reminiscences stay accessible with out overwhelming him.
“You understand, I can contact them. I can really feel them,” he says. “It isn’t simply one thing out of skinny air. My physique was there. My thoughts was there.”
For the previous decade, Dénouveaux has served as president of Life for Paris, a assist group created weeks after the assaults to assist survivors navigate medical care, paperwork and years of authorized proceedings that adopted.
From the beginning, he says, the group supposed to disband after the tenth anniversary.
“It seems like that cut-off date when you’ll be able to say, ‘No, I am not a sufferer anymore. I’ve been a sufferer. I was a sufferer,'” he says.
That does not imply forgetting — for Dénouveaux or for France. Shifting ahead, he says, is its personal sort of therapeutic.
