France to Commemorate Paris Victims With National Memorial Service

A woman lights a candle at the foot of the Monument a la Republique housing shrines for the victims of the 13 November terrorist attacks on Place de la Republique in Paris, France, 26 November 2015. Photo: EPA

France will commemorate the victims of the attacks in Paris on November 13 by holding a national memorial service on Friday.

The service in the French capital will bring together 1000 people at the Les Invalides complex, with French President Francois Hollande to address families of the victims.

A minute of silence will be observed and the names of all the victims will be read out, the BBC informs.

Hollande asked citizens to participate in the memorial service by decorating their homes with French flags.

Some of the families of the victims refused to participate in the service, expressing discontent with the failure of the state to prevent the attacks.

Attackers armed with suicide belts and machine guns targeted almost simultaneously six sites across the French capital, killing 130 people and leaving more than 350 injured.

At least nine people are believed to have been directly involved in the attacks, which were carried out at bars, restaurants, Bataclan concert hall and outside the Stade de France stadium.

All of them are dead, but two more men, including key suspect Salah Abdeslam, are still on the run as large-scale manhunts continue in France and Belgium.

Some of the attackers, including the suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who was killed in a police raid in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis last week, had lived in Brussels.

Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attacks.

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