In memories and pictures: stories of those who died in Paris attacks

They were artists and students, music lovers, parents and newlyweds. The victims of last week’s attacks in Paris had varied backgrounds and interests.

Among the 129 killed, here are some of their stories:

Mayeul Gaubert, 30, was a business lawyer particularly interested in intellectual property issues. He had written his master’s dissertation on the subject and contributed to a legal blog post about copyright matters after graduating and going to work for Cegos, a professional training and continuing education company.

Wounded at the Bataclan, Mr Gaubert was brought to a hospital but later died, his sister Anais, told Le Journal de Saone-et-Loire, a newspaper in central France. He had grown up in the region but was living in Paris.

Gilles Leclerc’s whereabouts remained a mystery for days after the attack at the Bataclan concert hall. His partner Marianne escaped, but he seemed to have disappeared.

In the frenzied aftermath of last week’s attacks, families and friends frantically searched for the missing, hoping they were not among those killed.

His sister set up a page called My brother Gilles Leclerc on Facebook over the weekend in hopes of finding him. She wrote: “We still haven’t found Gilles this morning but the search is continuing.”

On Monday his death was announced.

Eric Thome, 39, was an artist, fan of music and father with a five-year-old daughter and another child on the way when he died during the attack at Bataclan concert hall.

Mr Thome and a partner were running their own Paris design studio after working in the advertising business for years.

The studio specialised in bold, fanciful, often daring illustrations and photographs. Among the art displayed on its website was a whimsical illustration of a Kalashnikov assault rifle that looks like a plastic toy covered in cartoon-like drawings. Its stock says in bold letters: “It’s not my war.”

“He was an artist, always hip, a party guy who loved music,” a friend was quoted as saying by Le Parisien. “He was full of joie de vivre and adored his kid.” His second child was due in weeks, Le Parisien said on its website.

Cedric Gomet, 30, of Paris, was a technician for French television network TV5Monde, which posted a video showing a moment of silence being observed in his memory at the station, with employees holding photos of him in their hands.

Co-worker Eric Krissi said Gomet was roundly adored by everyone at the station. “Everyone loved him. He was always smiling … a true professional, truly appreciated.”

Mr Gomet, who began working at the station about five years ago, was passionate about rock music and played guitar in a local band. He died at the Bataclan.

Mr Krissi said Gomet’s family and girlfriend are in deep shock over his death.

Sven Silva was the kind of guy people remembered, and not just because of his flamboyant bushy afro hairstyle.

The 29-year-old Venezuelan could make a joke out of anything, and never said no to a good time, childhood friend Anders Borges said.

“If there was a party, he was there. He’d even go to my parent’s birthday parties,” Mr Borges said. “He was the one who always cheered us up, who made the jokes, who made sure everything went well. We looked to him in good times and we looked to him in the bad times, too.”

Like many middle-class Venezuelans, Mr Silva decided to leave the economically struggling South American country after graduating from college. He moved with his younger sister to Ireland in 2014 to study English, and then settled in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, where he worked as a computer programmer, Mr Borges said.

Last week, Mr Silva travelled to Paris to meet up with two old friends, fellow Venezuelans now living in Europe, and decided to head to a show at the Bataclan. His mother, Giovanina Perugini, said in a Facebook post that the family would remember Mr Silva’s smile, jokes, optimism and charisma.

She had visited her son in Spain a week before the attacks, Borges said. The family was planning to celebrate Christmas together. Silva would have been the life of the party, Mr Borges said.

A man of many talents and interests, Olivier Hauducoeur died doing one of the things he loved: listening to a rock concert. He was among the victims of the terrorist attack at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris.

Mr Hauducoeur, a banker, worked for the BNP Paribas Group. Outside of work, he liked to play guitar, enjoyed badminton, and belonged to an athletic club in Yerres, the Paris suburb where he lived, according to the profile he created in Copains d’avant, a website for connecting with old chums.

His profile said he was married with two children. He also ran cross-country, according to the website of L’Express news magazine. Travels had taken him around Europe, to North Africa and the United States, according to his Copains d’avant profile.

Minutes before gunmen stormed the Bataclan, Manu Perez, 40, of Paris posted on his Facebook page: He was enjoying the concert there by Eagles of Death Metal, he said, in “all its simplicity”.

The California-based rock band, whose members survived the attack, said in a statement that Mr Perez would be remembered as one of their “record company comrades.”

Pascal Negre, president of Universal Music France, Mr Perez’s employer, said via Twitter that the Universal Music family was “in mourning” over the deaths of Manu and two colleagues. Apparently it was one of those colleagues, Thomas Ayad, who provided Mr Perez with the tickets to attend the concert at the Bataclan.

Mr Perez’s last Facebook posting was a photo of the Eagles performing at the Bataclan just before the attack. The time was 9.03pm. The photo posted less than an hour before was of a pair of concert tickets, with a message from Mr Perez saying “Merci Thomas!”

Motorcycle-riding graphic designer Christophe Foultier loved rock music, and peppered his Facebook page with photos from shows and posts about bands. Some posts enthuse about Eagles of Death Metal, the last band he would ever see. Mr Foultier, 39, was killed at the Bataclan.

Foultier worked at health care communications agency Havas Life, which mourned him on its Facebook page. He and his wife, Caroline Jolivet, were raising their two small children in suburban Courbevoie.

Mr Foultier was also working on an album of his own with a friend, according to an essay by Francois Sionneau, the editor-in-chief of the news weekly Le Nouvel Observateur’s website and a colleague of Ms Jolivet’s.

The last time he saw Mr Foultier, the designer was picking up his wife at work on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, with a luminous smile, “the kind that make you believe in man”, Mr Sionneau wrote. He admired the bike, and Mr Foultier knew it.

Olivier Vernadal, 44, of Paris, lived near the Bataclan concert hall, and went there regularly for shows. He died there in the terrorist attack during a rock concert.

Mr Vernadal worked as a tax collector, but his first love was football. A native of Ceyrat in central France, he played football there and coached the local team, according to the website of the newspaper Liberation.

A banner was put up at city hall saying “We are all Olivier”. The town’s football stadium, where Mr Vernadal used to play, will now be renamed after him, according to the France Televisions website.

Tributes poured in for Estelle Rouat, 25, who died during the attack at the Bataclan concert hall.

She had recently begun her first regular teaching job and a ceremony was held in her honor at the Gay Lussac middle school where she taught in Colombes, a Paris suburb. Students, parents and teachers were leaving flowers in her memory at the school’s entry, the website of Le Parisien newspaper reported.

Pierre-Antoine Henry, 36, who died during the attack at the Bataclan, was a communications systems engineer from a politically active family. His father, Eric Henry, has worked with a member of France’s National Assembly, Serge Bardy, who said on his blog he was “deeply affected” by the family’s loss.

Pierre-Antoine Henry had earned a degree in 2002 from Paris’ L’Ecole de L’Innovation Technologique, the engineering and technology school said on its website. He and his wife had two small daughters, according to Le Courrier de l’Ouest, a newspaper in western France. A cousin, Amandine Panhard, said the two “were young professionals, doing well in life”.

“They killed the nicest guy in the world,” she told the news service.

Veronique Geoffroy de Bourgies, 54, was out to dinner with friends who were visiting from out of town when attackers began shooting at La Belle Equipe, a restaurant near her home that she and her husband had recently discovered.

Her husband, photographer Stephane de Bourgies, who was in China for work when the attack happened, had lost his parents in an accident three decades ago, and he and his wife had spoken to their children about death. They talked about the importance of letting people know you love them because that love can carry you through when something terrible happens.

The pair had adopted their daughter Melissa, 14, and their son, 12, both from Madagascar. Shortly after Melissa’s adoption they decided to do something to help other children from that country off the coast of south-east Africa. They founded Zazakely Sambatry, a humanitarian organisation whose name means “happy children” in the Malagasy language, according to the organisation’s website.

“She was the one who did everything. I supported her in this project, but she was really the one who threw herself into it,” Mr de Bourgies told French television station TF1, adding that it was important to his wife to help the children learn and grow up able to support themselves so they would stay and help improve the country.

Chloe Boissinot, 25, had stopped in at a Paris restaurant with her boyfriend when the terrorists attacked. He survived; she did not.

Ms Boissinot came to Paris two years ago to be with him and began working in a pub, according to the “7 in Poitiers” news website. Friends and family poured out their grief on social media.

“Chloe was full of life and health. I want everyone to remember her that way,” her sister Jenny posted on Facebook. Her mother, Babette, wrote parting thoughts to her departed daughter: “You will stay my little one always. You won’t grow old. You won’t get cancer.”

Others were angry and defiant. One family friend wrote to the attackers: “Terrorist, does my freedom of thought bother you? I’m a woman, French, I wear a skirt, put on high heels, drink wine. Look at me: I think, speak, spit my hatred in your eye. I am diversity. I am tolerance. Look at me: you won’t make me tremble.”

At Chateau-Larcher in western France, where Ms Boissinot went to school, residents observed a moment of silence. Writing in a guestbook, according to the news website Francebleu, one friend called Ms Boissinot “a beautiful flower ripped from the ground by terrorism”.

It was a night out for Claire Scesa Camax, a chance to indulge her love of music by seeing Eagles Of Death Metal at the Bataclan.

When the terrorists struck, the graphic designer and mother of two was killed. Her husband, Laurent Camax, survived.

Claire Camax, who was in her mid-thirties, loved the arts, from drawing and painting to comics and rock music, her husband told Le Courrier des Yvelines, a newspaper in the Paris suburbs.

She and her husband were raising their children, three and seven, in Houilles, a Paris suburb. They were, he told Le Courrier des Yvelines, leading “a peaceful, middle-class French life”.

Romain Dunet’s interest in teaching had taken him around the world. The 28-year-old was an English teacher at a Paris high school when he was killed at the Bataclan, but he had done a stint helping instruct New Zealand students in French in 2013.

He pursued another passion, music, at open-mic nights in Paris bars and cafes, where he was known as Romain Dunay. Mixing covers and his own material, “he was a natural with creating vocal harmonies, and the effect was always stirring”, a friend from that scene, Riyad Sanford, said. A video that friends put together features him playing up-tempo, acoustic pop-rock on guitar and singing about living in a virtual world.

Fellow musicians enjoyed his easygoing, fun-loving attitude as well as his music, Mr Sanford said.

“He had a fabulous sense of humour,” he said. “Extremely approachable, he made many friends very quickly.”

During his time in Dunedin, New Zealand, Mr Dunet “formed an incredibly positive relationship” with students, Judith Forbes, the principal of one of the several schools where he was an assistant teacher, told the Otago Daily Times.

Nathalie Jardin, 31, was the lighting designer for the Bataclan hall rock concert targeted by terrorists. She died doing a job to which she was devoted and for which she was known for her dedication and passion.

Nicknamed Natalight, Ms Jardin was originally from the town of Marcq-en-Baroeul in northern France. She came to Paris to work for a succession of bands.

One of them, Les Fatals Picards, wrote an intimate tribute to her on its Facebook site, remembering her love of music and surfing, talent for preparing the punch bowl before concerts, ability to down an entire salad bowl of cut vegetables, and disapproval when they decided to change the set list at the last moment. A friend added that she liked good French fries. Another friend commented on the live entertainment website ampthemag.com: “Wherever you are, I know you’ll make them dance again.”

Maud Serrault, 37, of Paris, had just begun married life when she died in the attack on the Bataclan concert hall. Days later, her Facebook site still showed her strolling down a wooded path at a hotel in Germany with her groom in a tuxedo for their June wedding.

She wore a rainbow-coloured tiara and clutched a bouquet. In the other hand, she was holding the train of her wedding gown, covered casually by a denim jacket. Ms Serrault and her husband were together at the concert at the time of the attack, but he managed to flee, according to the hotel trade website Hospitality ON. Ms Serrault was director of marketing and e-commerce for Best Western France.

A native of Paris, she studied marketing and communications at CELSA Paris-Sorbonne.

Artist Alban Denuit, 32, born in Marmande, France, was attending the concert at the Bataclan.

He taught and showed his work in the city of Bordeaux, according to the Sud Ouest news site. The Eponyme Gallery in Bordeaux, which promoted Mr Denuit’s work, issued a statement speaking of its “deep sadness” over the death of the emerging young artist.

Gregory Fosse, 28, of Paris, who worked for the D17 television station as a music programmer, died at the Bataclan concert hall doing what he loved best: listening to music. Terry Jee, of Paris, a singer and friend, said Mr Fosse embraced music of many styles. He had given considerable play time to Jee’s song, Peace And Love, which is a call for goodwill and tolerance, and that is how the two men became friends.

“He wanted people to hear this message of peace,” Jee said. “He wore his heart on his sleeve and was always ready to help others.” Fighting through tears, Jee added: “Now I see that life is unfair.”

Mr Fosse had worked in recent years for the TV station in Boulogne, on the outskirts of Paris. The station put out a statement saying: “We all knew his kindness, his special smile, and his passion for music,” according to the Liberation newspaper. Mayor Regis Bizeau in Gambais, where Mr Fosse grew up, said the community was “deeply shaken”, according to the “toutes les nouvelles” news website.

Jee said he has now dedicated Peace And Love – called “Vive la Paix” in its French version – to his friend.

Among audience members at the Bataclan, Anne and Pierre-Yves Guyomard were particularly steeped in music. He was a well-known sound engineer who taught his craft at a technical institute, and she was a former student.

“He was a kind human, super-competent, extremely funny and fun-loving,” singer Leslie Winer said. “Peerless” in both the studio and live settings, Pierre-Yves Guyomard, 43, worked with artists including Winer and the French rock band Tanger, said guitarist Christophe Van Huffel, a former Tanger member and a collaborator of Winer’s.

Anne Cornet Guyomard, 29, had been one of her husband’s students before changing careers to paediatric nursing, Van Huffel said. She worked at a child care centre near Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the Paris suburb where they lived and were married in May 2013 by mayor Emmanuel Lamy, according to the French newspaper Le Parisien. He recalled a couple “full of life and hope”.

The two had lived for a time on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, where Anne Guyomard’s relatives told news outlet L’Info they had spent an agonising day-and-a-half wondering about the couple’s fate, calling unanswered phones, and appealing for word of the two via Facebook before being told they had been killed.

Anne was “the daughter I would wish on all parents – one who’s attentive, one who’s full of life”, and she loved children and people in general, brother-in-law Chris Hamer told L’Info.

The last time Winer spoke to Pierre-Yves Guyomard, she said, “he told me they were hoping to have children sometime soon”.

Romain Didier and Lamia Mondeguer were celebrating a friend’s birthday at the La Belle Equipe bar when terrorists killed them and 17 others there.

Mr Didier and Ms Mondeguer had been dating for just four months, since her 30th birthday party in July, said her employer, talent agent Mathilde Mayet.

Fun-loving, assertive, lively, funny and very frank, “she really incarnated youth today”, Ms Mayet said.

Ms Mondeguer was in charge of Noma Talents’ work with actors and had worked at the agency for five years, Ms Mayet said. A graduate of l’Ecole superieure d’etudes cinematographiques, a Paris film school, Ms Mondeguer was passionate about culture and cinema. She had made a film that interviewed visitors at an environmentally themed 2009 exhibit that aimed to get at the similarities and differences of people around the world, the Goodplanet foundation wrote on its website.

Mr Didier, 32, had come to Paris from the wine-making community of Sancerre, where residents and the mayor gathered on Monday for a moment of silence in his honour, according to local news outlet Le Berry Republicain. In the capital, he studied drama and managed the Little Temple Bar for several years with a big smile, “great energy, great kindness, great jokes, great joy and a warm welcome”, according to a tribute on the bar’s Facebook page.

Some of his free time was spent playing with Crocodiles Rugby, and the team said his “joie de vivre was unequalled” in a post on its Facebook page.

“You knew what the words ‘courage’ and ‘unity’ meant,” the team wrote.

Manuel Colaco Dias, a 63-year-old Portuguese man who had lived in France for more than 40 years, was the only person who was killed near the Stade de France, where three attackers blew themselves up outside the stadium. Mr Dias was a driver with the French company Regnault Autocars, according to the French newspaper Le Parisien.

His daughter, Sophie Colaco Dias, said that he travelled from his home town Reims, about 150 kilometres (90 miles) away from Paris, with three clients attending the game.

“After dropping them off, he gave a call to my mother and told her he preferred to stay outside instead of buying a ticket for the match so he could speak with her on the phone,” she recalled. “But my mum was already speaking with me on another line. She told my father that she would call him back. After that, she constantly reached his voicemail.”

(Press Association)

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