Mass marches were banned following the terrorist attacks, but some protesters are pushing the boundaries. Over 20,000 shoes were placed in Paris’s Place de la République to symbolize those unable to march for climate action on November 29. Among them were the pope’s black leather dress shoes. Antonia Juhasz for Newsweek Amelie Cornu’s sister-in-law was at the Bataclan theater on November 13, the night 130 people were killed in a series of coordinated attacks across Paris, and the site of the deadliest violence that night. She survived, although other friends of Cornu’s friends did not. Iain Keith was sitting in a restaurant when he looked up to see a man outside of the window dressed all in black carrying a gun walking up the street and shouting. A waiter hurried Keith and the others there down the stairs and to a back room. All left physically unharmed. A friend of Alix’s (who did not give a last name) lost her sister in the attacks. “We all knew someone, or know someone who knew someone,” directly harmed in the attacks,” says Lola Sigogneau of the French climate organization Alternatiba. “But the same is true for all of Paris.” All were originally united by over a year’s worth of effort to plan what they hoped would be the single largest march demanding action on climate in history, but their lives became inextricably linked that night by the worst attack in French history since World War II. The tragedy ultimately permeated every event held for the climate on November 29, the day before world leaders gathered in Paris for the United Nations 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21). Read the rest at Newsweek. Visit site:   At COP21, Victims of Paris Attack Mobilize for Climate Action ; ; ;

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At COP21, Victims of Paris Attack Mobilize for Climate Action