Bay Area French Community Reels Following Terror Attacks In Paris
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) – The Bay Area's French community mourned and frantically sought info about friends and relatives in France following Friday's terror attacks in Paris that killed more than 120 people.
Lea Hoffman, a native of Paris, was among those who gathered at the French Consulate in San Francisco to remember the victims. She also stopped by the consulate earlier this year, when terrorists stormed the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and killed 11 journalists.
Hoffman is in shock that a string of terror attacks have once again rocked her hometown.
"It's terrible like twice in a year. It's too much," she told KPIX 5.
Hoffman panicked when she heard the news. "I needed to text my parents and my friends to be sure that they are safe. So yeah it's terrible. There is no word to explain the situation," she said.
Mourners lit candles outside the consulate, left flowers and wrote messages saying, "We stand with France."
Dasha Sayenko left a stuffed animal and a bouquet after learning that her cousin, who lives in Paris, was not hurt.
"He said that he's safe and there's a lot of chaos in Paris and everyone is really scared," Sayenko said.
At San Francisco International Airport, parents from Lycee Francais de San Francisco picked up their children after a school trip. The attacks in Paris were not far from their minds.
"I have a brother in law that was walking at the stadium at the time when the bomb happened," said Jeremy Chone of San Francisco. "But then on WhatsApp I kind of read that everything was fine with him."
Terrifying explosions went off outside the Stade de France, where the French and German soccer teams were playing a match. French police said attackers killed more than a dozen diners at a restaurant and more than 100 concertgoers at the Bataclan, a popular music venue.
Like Chone, many of the parents who send their kids to the French bilingual school in the Haight have roots in and around Paris and visit often.
"Kind of scary, because when I go back to Paris I like to go to restaurants, my parents like to go out, my family, like everybody goes out. So it's always a little bit stressing to know that when you're in a restaurant now, you can get attacked by a terrorist," Chone said.
For those whose children are old enough, parents try to explain what may be difficult to understand.
"We tell them you know there's people who have a different view of the world and getting fanatics and getting a little bit crazy about their ideas, and they try to change the world by force," Chone said.
