EIFFEL TOWER GOES DARK AS FRANCE MOURNS 129 DEAD

Young women have formed the word Paris with candles to mourn for the victims killed in Friday's attacks in Paris, France, in front of the French Embassy in Berlin, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2015. Multiple attacks across Paris on Friday night have left scores dead and hundreds injured.(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

PARIS (AP) -- The Eiffel Tower stood dark in a symbol of mourning Saturday night as France struggled to absorb the deadliest violence on its soil since World War II: coordinated gun-and-suicide bombing attacks across Paris that left at least 129 people dead and 352 injured.

President Francois Hollande vowed that France would wage "merciless" war on the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the mayhem, as investigators raced to track down their accomplices and uncovered possible links to networks in Belgium and Syria.

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."