【The mood in Paris】巴黎现在什么样？

The Mood in Paris After the Attacks Saturday night, there was almost no one on the Métro, except for lone tramps and beggars collapsed in corners. In some ways, Paris is just the same: gray November skies, humid and rainy, plenty of people sitting at tables outside the cafés, smoking with one hand and drinking red wine with the other. But it is also not the same at all. At dusk on Sunday, someone had let off firecrackers near the somber crowd, and the panic spread from street to street, overturning café tables and chairs, pulling down metal shutters, as people ran around corners, rushed inside. Someone ran down into the basement. “No!” The manager said, “that’s not necessary. We’re not going to jump every time there’s a panic.” People have been gathering on the Place de La République not only to share in remembrance but also to debate. One man was yelling, “They should send them all back to Syria on a plane!” “What are you talking about?” My friend Gabriel shouted back. “These are French citizens, too!” Police checkpoints on the roads outside of Paris have been inspecting cars at gunpoint. Sirens seem to sound more often and more more ominously. When I walked back to the Métro from lunch, I saw some men in jeans and black hoodies standing on a side street. One of them was carrying a submachine gun. “Are you the police?” I asked him. “Of course we are the police,” he replied. “Yes, but how can I tell?”