(AFP) The celebrated Christmas market in France’s eastern city of Strasbourg opened for another festive season on Friday, with shopkeepers and visitors vowing not to be cowed by an attack last year by a radical Islamist gunman that killed five people.
The annual celebrations around a giant Christmas tree will be shadowed by the events of December 11, 2018, when Cherif Chekatt, 29, went on the rampage at the market.
The anniversary itself will be marked by a sombre homage to the memory of those killed.
“We have no specific elements of concern — terrorist or otherwise — concerning the Christmas market in Strasbourg,” Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told the Dernieres Nouvelles d’Alsace newspaper before visiting the market to enjoy a mulled wine and chat to stallholders.
