Paris Responds to Terrorist Attacks With Red Wine, Rock Music, and Defiance

They bombed Syria. Then they went out and got blitzed.

The French response to the horrific, coordinated attacks on Paris entertainment districts over the weekend included swift military action and sweeping police raids. That left the rest of the French, mourning 129 deaths and some 350 injuries, to fight back as only they can: By enjoying their lives to the fullest.

A Reuters reporter Tuesday toured a coordinated evening of merriment, in which Parisians tried to fill the cafes and shops that violence had hollowed out. It was defiant and in its way, a form of non-violent resistance.

“This was an attack on our way of life,” said Mr. Lezeau, shouting to be heard above the noise of clinking glasses and rock music. “With this simple act, we’re showing that we are never going to let the terrorists get at the heart of France.

That the bistro was in the 11th Arrondissement, less than 50 yards from where a massacre unfolded at the Bataclan concert hall Friday night, added an edge of poignancy to the gesture.

“They were trying to kill our very culture — the French way of life,” Camille Dancourt, 18, a student at the Institut Catholique, said while out with friends earlier in the day. “They will not succeed.”

The “way of life” under attack is one of secular pleasures: drinking, dancing, laughing, loving. It stands to reason that you may indulge in your own acts of resistance on behalf of the French, or merely in defiance of madmen who would spray crowds with Kalashnikov fire and blow themselves up in crowds.

Here are some of the photos people are posting offered under the hashtags #tousaubistrot (“Everyone to the bar!”) and #jesuisenterrace (“I am on the terrace”):

And naturally Charlie Hebdo told terrorists to get bent with its cover that reads, “They have weapons. Fuck them, we have Champagne!” Maybe ISIS affiliates could enjoy the merriment on Twitter were Anonymous not so busy taking apart their accounts.