These Interviews With Kids After The Paris Attacks Will Shatter Your Already Broken Heart

Paris is still reeling from the attacks that left 129 dead and hundreds more injured on Friday. But across the city, many gathered to hold vigils in remembrance of those who perished. Journalist Martin Weill from the French television program Le Petit Journal was on the scene, interviewing Parisians young and old about their thoughts on the tragedy. "We’re so good, we’re so happy, so free…and they’re so frustrated," one teenage girl tells Weill in the video below. Weill and his team also interviewed children on the scene, who are still struggling to comprehend the extent of Friday's events. And their reflections on what happened are particularly heartbreaking, but are also hopeful. One 9-year-old girl, who attended the vigil with her mother, tells the camera, "Well, I’ve been telling myself in my head that there was a war. I don’t like when there’s war. I would love for this to stop. And…that’s it." Weill goes on to ask the girl's mother, "You’re of Muslim identity?… Isn’t it even more difficult to explain to your child that this isn’t your religion?" But the young girls's mother's response is hopeful. "Yes, it’s difficult to explain," she says. "But I tell her about myself and my husband all the time — I’m a Christian and my husband is French — and I tell her that we respect all religions. We don’t have any differences. We must have humanity and not be barbaric in life. That’s it." Will it get better, Weill asks? Her daughter tells the interviewer, "I’m going to try not to have any nightmares tonight. I will try."

Another father-and-son moment has warmed the soul of the Internet, as a young kid nervously says of the attackers, "Bad guys are not very nice. And we have to be really careful because we have to change houses." The father reassures him that no, they won't have to move. But his son keeps asking questions. "They have guns, they can shoot us because they're really, really mean," the child frets. "Yes, they might have guns, but we have flowers," his father answers. "But the flowers don't do anything," his son protests. "Of course they do. Look, everyone is putting flowers. It's to fight against the guns." "For protection?" the son wonders. "And the candles, too?" "It's so we don't forget the people who left yesterday," the father says. "So it's to protect us, the flowers and the candles?" the son asks. "Yes," his dad says.

It's safe to say, however, that the terror attacks Friday didn't squash Parisians' joie de vivre; all the people Weill interviewed said that they would continue to frequent their favorite neighborhoods and live their regular lives. As one young Parisian told Weill, "What we’ve seen on the television today isn’t that big of news — it could have happened to anyone: you, your friend…. I don’t support the idea that this means I have to change what I usually do or do other things, so I prefer to continue to go out and see things." For full coverage of the Paris attacks, read more here.