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‘We can’t be afraid, we have to live like any day’

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The Aligre market in Paris is open every day except Monday. But when vendors came to work on the Saturday after the attacks, they found the market closed. That never happens, says Eskander Dridi, who sells vegetables there.

The Aligre market in Paris is open every day except Monday. But when vendors came to work on the Saturday after the attacks, they found the market closed. That never happens, says Eskander Dridi, who sells vegetables there.

Adeline Sire

Whenever I am in Paris, I head to the marché d’Aligre. This is a farmers' market — one of the icons of a neighborhood that was attacked last week. It’s in the 12th district, right on the border with the 11th.

The market’s a very popular place, surrounded by cafés and cheese shops, butcher shops, fishmongers and hardware stores that sell items you won’t find anywhere else. There’s a little flea market on the side too. It’s great just to walk around and sample the fruit and vegetables that vendors are eager for you to try. There are mangoes from Madagascar, dates from Algeria, oranges from Tunisia as well as beautiful mushrooms from central France.

Usually you bump shoulders with people trying to get through the Aligre market's vendor-lined street, but not on this day, four days after the Paris attacks.
Usually you bump shoulders with people trying to get through the Aligre market's vendor-lined street, but not on this day, four days after the Paris attacks. Adeline Sire

The market has a real North African flavor, not only because of the fruit sold here, but because almost every vendor is of North African descent.

Usually, you have to push your way through the crowds here, but not today. I can’t remember ever seeing a clear path down the street lined with vendors.

Eskander Dridi sells vegetables here. His parents are Tunisian, but Eskander is a Parisian, a true product of this neighborhood. He was born at the hospital around the corner, lives a few blocks away from the market, and went to school farther down the street. His father ran his vegetable stall before him, and Dridi kept the spot after he retired. 

Dridi sells his produce at the Aligre market every day except Mondays, when the market is closed. But after the Friday attack, Paris authorities banned public gatherings so many vendors showed up here at 4 a.m. on Saturday, produce in hand, only to be told they couldn’t open their stalls.

The market was closed for two days. I asked Dridi if that had ever happened before.

“Never. NE-VER!” he says — not even after the attack on Charlie Hebdo in January.

Eskander Dridi (center) with friends at his vegetable stand at the Aligre market. Most of the vendors at this Paris farmers market are of North African descent.
Eskander Dridi (center) with friends at his vegetable stand at the Aligre market. Most of the vendors at this Paris farmers market are of North African descent.Adeline Sire

Dridi says he walked by the Belle Équipe Café on rue de Charonne 20 minutes before it was attacked on Friday night, and he feels lucky that no one he knows personally got hurt.

But he still thinks the market should have opened as usual the next day.

“We can’t be afraid,” he says. “We have to live like any day.”

Valérie Xaé lives around the block from the market with her family and comes here nearly every day. But today it wasn’t an easy walk.

“I had to push myself out of the house today,” she says. “It was good to go for a walk and do something and then start it all again. We can’t stay and hide. It’s time for mourning and being sad, but if we stop doing things, they will win. I’m scared, but I don’t want them to win.”

Besides, Xaé says she feels the need to show her support for the Muslim vendors she knows here “to express that we don’t mix everybody together,” she says. “A really religious person would not kill anyone.”

Mohammed Amdi has grown children who live around the 11th district, and he was frightened for them on the night of the attacks. He says he thinks of all the young people out enjoying a drink at a café who lost their lives.
Mohammed Amdi has grown children who live around the 11th district, and he was frightened for them on the night of the attacks. He says he thinks of all the young people out enjoying a drink at a café who lost their lives.Adeline Sire

Another vendor, Mohammed Amdi, who was born in Tunisia, has grown children who live around the 11th district. And he was worried about them on Friday.

He says vendors like him lost a lot of money over the two days the market was closed.

“We all lost,” he says, “but I am looking at people in their 20s enjoying a drink at a café and losing their lives."

“That is so much more than money.”

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