Parisian organiser of Dublin solidarity march moved by turnout

You’d be forgiven for passing Juliette Charton-Blondeau in the street. A young French girl living in Temple Bar, there are many like her. Except a week ago last Saturday she did something extraordinary.

Following the terrorist attacks in Paris she organised a march where up to 6,000 people took to the streets of Dublin in support of France.

“I didn’t sleep Friday night. I just felt so bad because I was in Dublin far from my friends and family and I just wanted to do something in memory of the victims and their families. I thought the march was a good way to bring everybody together in Dublin," she said.

Those that braved the weather on Saturday were not only French included but many Irish, Italian, Spanish and Brazilians too. Juliette is touched that so many people who were not French came to support France in her hour of need.

A bubbly vibrant character by nature, the attacks on her native city have clearly left her shaken her as she recalls where she was when she learned her beloved Paris had been attacked by jihadi terrorists.

“I was in Japanese a restaurant with a friend when I saw some messages that an attack had happened in Paris, I was so shocked that my friend and I immediately left the restaurant. I spent all night at my computer trying to get my head around what happened”.

Fridays attacks hit a nerve even here in Ireland as the nights horror unfolded. Paris, a city many of us have loved and lived in, had come under siege from the barbarian deathcult ISIL.

For Juliette her immediate reaction was panic. She has family and friends living in Paris, including a cousin who lives near the Bataclan theatre where 89, mostly young, concert-goers were killed when Islamic State militants targeted a show by Californian rock band Eagles of Death Metal. Thankfully, Juliette's friends were unharmed.

Like many French people she sees the events as an attack on the French way of life.

This is different to Charlie Hebdo she says, casualties aside “when the terrorists attacked Charlie Hebdo they wanted to attack the magazine for making fun of the prophet Mohammed. This was an attack on us, on our way of life”.

She says although people in Paris are afraid, they are trying to get back to normal life.

“I think that today a lot of people are afraid, we know there may be another attack. We shall not be afraid. If we stop living now they will win.”

The defiant courage is a sentiment that has been echoed in the capital where nervous Parisians cautiously return to the city’s boulevards and cafes.

Reflecting on the unprecedented turnout at the Dublin march Juliette said, “I didn’t realise that so many people wanted to come together. It was only when the French embassy called me on Saturday morning to thank me for organising the event that I had realised I had organised something very big”.

“It was nice to see that we were not alone”.

There was sadness and incomprehension in the air at the Dublin march as the crowd soberly sang La Marseillaise as they weaved through the streets of the city.

“I am not afraid and I trust the government when they say, they won’t allow our country to be beaten by these people, we will never forget and we will never be able to live as before but we have to try to move on from this massacre”.

Juliette radiates the defiant spirit shown by many of the French, as she adamantly says she will return to Paris for Christmas.