Books of condolence opened the day after the terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015

Books of condolence opened by the local administration of the 11th arrondissement in Paris, the day after the terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015. The first register was a simple spiral-bound notebook, put in place urgently on the morning of 14 November. In three months, upwards of 1,300 messages were left in 4 different registers. More than 90% of these were written in the first fortnight. Historian Hélène Frouard carried out an enquiry concerning these registers based on interviews with the people involved (city hall staff, eye-witnesses etc.) and did a statistical analysis of their content. One of the aims was to study the impact of the attacks on the inhabitants of Paris.