Overview
- Three suicide blasts began at 21:16 outside the Stade de France, with stewards preventing the attackers from entering and the venue placed in lockdown as police secured the area.
- Stadium officials intentionally withheld in-venue alerts to prevent panic, a choice described by then-director Alexandra Boutellier as essential in a closed arena of 80,000 people.
- Players were kept uninformed until full-time, after which French and German squads stayed together in the same area, and Didier Deschamps offered to host the German team at Clairefontaine.
- The French federation opted to play at Wembley four days later to avoid conceding to terror, as an emotional Marseillaise rang out; families were directly affected, with Antoine Griezmann’s sister safe from the Bataclan and Lassana Diarra losing a cousin.
- As the anniversary coincides with a France–Ukraine match, Deschamps says he would have preferred a different date, and new media reports feature survivor accounts and examine findings that many jihadists from that cohort have been released or will be soon.