In Paris on November 13, 2015, you could hear the sounds of a city under siege. Terror groups were targeting Parisians at random in a crowded theater, packed cafes, restaurants and a major soccer match leaving 130 dead and nearly 400 injured. A nation that once survived the occupation of armies was now under attack by a new enemy. In this case, one that didn't wear uniforms and promises to strike again.
It was unnerving in a way that altered the feel of this storied city.
The romance of Paris isn't just a product of Hollywood; it's inherent in the city's iconic monuments and picturesque cafes captured in the phrase "Joie De Vivre," meaning the joy of life.
Three months after the attacks, the shattered glass still sends an ominous message that the bullets pierced both lives and the way of living here.
At Le Carillon café, the site of the first shooting, patrons now sit with a careful eye, always alert as to what's around them.
Morand: The big thing now is they are shooting people in the streets randomly.
Luc Morand is the owner of several downtown restaurants.
Morand: There were basically nobody anymore in the restaurants so we had in the initial days after we had something like two, between two and six people in an evening to have dinner so it was really empty.
Thuman: Two and six people, just for dinner?
Morand: Yes.
It has rebounded a bit but to say it's back to what it was prior to the attacks would mean more than just filling seats. It would mean a level of comfort that is hard to come by.
Thuman: Here at the Bataclan there are plenty of physical reminders of what happened, the bullet holes, the barricades, the fresh bouquets of flowers but it's what you don't see, that invisible anxiety that folks here say has the most impact. What might happen the next day what might be just around the next corner and that is why the French are now admitting they have to live with what they call, "the new normal."
Si Hocine Si Zyad (Manager of Le Grand Hotel Francais): Because it's like every day you open your TV and they tell you maybe you're going to die today, maybe you're going to die today and that's terrible and I think the best thing is not to know.
In some respects the French did know something was going to happen after the publishers of the satirical paper 'Charlie Hebdo' were targeted in a deadly attack just ten months before.
Morand: We knew that 'Charlie Hebdo' was a target, so at least there was an explanation. It was a big shock but with an explanation. There it's another story: it's just people going out into the streets and shooting everybody it's pure bad luck if you are there.
The recoil is hard to ignore, especially among tourists who now stroll by soldiers with intimidating hardware on their way to France's most famous sights.
Dale Carter and Gemma Fletcher-Jones, both tourists from Australia: You see police with all the guns and its kind of scary. I kind of expected it knowing what had happened but it's quite confronting just seeing it. Not used to it.
Evangelina Gonzalez, tourist from Mexico: I was thinking not to come to Paris for that reason, I was thinking, I think it better to jump that continue and continue our travels to Germany.
If it sounds familiar to Americans, political analyst, Thomas Guénolé says it should.
Guénolé: In terms of state of mind as a population, we are just like the American population just after 9/11. In fact, that's what we have and what I mean by that is we are in a state of global psychosis.
Just like America, France revived a sense of pride in old glory and anthems were sung with renewed emotion. A six hundred year old motto made a comeback here, "Fluctuat nec mergitur," meaning tossed but not sunk, like a ship battered in rough seas.
Quoniam: The machine right here which is printing flags was working all night and all day and during all the week.
Enzo Quoniam, a flag maker, says the run on this country's tricolour was unprecedented.
Quoniam: People feel more comfortable because before the events it was associated with extreme movements, political movements and it was bad seen having a French flag in our house. Showing a flag is now an act of going against the terrorists.
Pruvost: I think it was probably the same way I remember going to New York about a year later [after 9/11] and I felt that everyone had come together in France this is, I feel this too I feel that a lot of the French are coming together.
Denise Pruvost is an American living in Paris who with her family runs a dental practice.
Pruvost: My neighbors were all talking to me. People were talking. In Paris that doesn't happen.
Thuman: So there was a sense of community that didn't exist before?
Pruvost: A strong sense of community!
But to say that this surge in solidarity could be seen as a fix would be deceiving one's self.
Si Hocine Si Zyad (Hotel Manager): We have to learn to live with the terrorism. I think the old generation, they did not know terrorists. Our generation of the 21st century, we have to learn living with the terrorists.
Morand (Restaurant owner): At the moment we cannot have any proof that the problem is solved and I think it's not solved anyway. So it might happen again. It might happen again in France but you know it may happen in other countries too, in Europe or even in the US.
Which has produced another sobering similarity to the Post-9/11 United States.
Guénolé (Political Analyst): Just like in the United States after 9/11 we have a big problem of the growing hatred against the Muslim population. I'm not saying that Americans became, all of them anti-Muslim, anti-Arab population but some of them, some of them began to feel very strong hatred against that part of the population. We have the very same problem.
Thuman: You're seeing that here now in France?
Guénolé: Yeah, clearly. Clearly!
And while such reaction would have been expected among some nations, in France, this type of talk has long been taboo.
Guénolé: If I wanted to make a sarcastic joke, I would say that in France racism is the new black, basically. Basic racist tendencies and something like 20 or 15 years ago saying that, you would have been sacked from the government just the very same day today, you become Prime Minister.
Harsher laws similar to the Patriot Act, stricter border checks, and the open display of weaponry prove that this is a new Paris.
With mosques under more watchful eyes and the glares from behind plate glass by now leery Parisians, many wonder if this city will ever return to its storybook setting.
Morand: I think it will return to normal, but it will take time.
Thuman: But Paris is probably always going to be a target?
Morand: Probably, probably.
