Showing posts with label Associated Press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Associated Press. Show all posts

Saturday, November 14, 2015

IN A SOMBER, OFF-KILTER PARIS, MASS MURDER LEAVES EMPTINESS

 A man hides his face as he leaves the morgue in Paris, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2015. French President Francois Hollande vowed to attack the Islamic State group without mercy as the jihadist group admitted responsibility Saturday for orchestrating the deadliest attacks inflicted on France since World War II. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza




BY JOHN LEICESTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

PARIS (AP) -- The indiscriminate taking of so many lives squeezed life out of Paris itself. Not all life but enough to create a sense of emptiness. Although far from extinguished, the City of Light is now unmistakably dimmed.
On somber streets, scattered with the dead leaves of autumn, Parisians went through the motions of trying to pick up where they left off before suicide attackers slaughtered 129 people, the latest official count. So much felt wrong and out of kilter.
The Eiffel Tower closed and, in doing so, became a 324-meter (1,063-foot) tall symbol of how much is changed. Its glittering lights, so powerful they usually radiate beams far and wide across the city, were also switched off Saturday night in mourning.
Disneyland Paris shut its doors. Instead of an Andy Warhol exhibition, the only thing out-of-town visitors Yvette and Guilhem Nougaret saw at the Museum of Modern Art was a sign announcing its closure "because of the circumstances."