Once again, France has had to hold an official moment of national mourning. Communities all over the country, from small villages to the largest metropolises, gathered their local residents together for the traditional minute of silence and the laying of wreaths by the communes and other groups.
Our village was no exception, and we joined in to show our personal sympathy with many of the local friends we've made.
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| The village officials addressing the locals |
Because we try to be involved in our village, we know all these people, and it's quite sad to keep having to congregate with them for this type of activity.
It just wasn't that long ago we did this before.
After a few opening statements, several groups laid their wreaths at the war memorial that just about every community has had since the human devastation of World War I.
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| From the elected officials |
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| From the activities committee |
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| From the veterans |
Then everybody showed respect for the victims by a minute of silence, followed by singing the national anthem. It was interesting that they also sang the local anthem, Nissa La Bella (Nice The Beautiful), although most of the non-native locals had to struggle a bit with the local dialect words.
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| The local police representative |
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| Singing the national anthem |
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| Locals of all ages paying tribute |
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| Many of our friends |
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| Lighting candles |
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| Adding personal flowers |
After the official tribute by the local dignitaries, individuals added their contributions.
Some lighted candles, others added their own flowers to
the official ones.
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| The local war memorial |
It seemed like most people didn't want to leave right away, despite it being the dinner hour.
Having lived in large communities my whole life, it's really interesting now to be part of a typical village lifestyle and to personally know so many of the people who tend to be fairly involved in local activities. We do our expatriate best to join in.
As most of you don't live this lifestyle, either, I thought you might enjoy seeing our local monument to the fallen citizens of the village, which has become an important congregation area whenever a memorial moment takes place.
I also thought you might like to see the pretty wreaths that were laid, unfortunately this time in sorrow for current events rather than marking a historical date.
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| The official wreath |
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| Representing various aspects of village life |
Earlier in the day, the nation as a whole held a collective minute of silence. I lifted a few photos from the internet to show you how it looked in Nice. Apparently there were some 30,000 people who attended the fireworks, while there were around 42,000 who came out in homage for the victims.
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| A drone's view |
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| Gathered together in solidarity |
In chatting with others at our local event, I discovered a very sad story. We are able to see several sets of fireworks from surrounding villages from our balcony, so we don't make the effort to hassle the traffic and parking to see the big Nice offering (I'm sure we've really been missing some beautiful displays).
While we were watching the pretty presentation of one village across the river, a whole extended family from that village skipped their own display to go down for the big Nice event. Six out of seven did not return home. An adult son lost his wife, stepson, both in-laws, and both parents — his whole immediate family.
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| Adding garbage to ugly rocks, as well as spit |
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| Apparently something was burned |
And now I will leave you on a more positive note with how the outpouring of love for his victims continued to grow at the designated memorial spot since we were there the day before, and how it all looked surrounded by the show of solidarity by the locals at the official moment of tribute.
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| An overall view I couldn't get myself |
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| The forces of positive over evil |
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