As the hours unfolded and the world learned of the grisly attacks Friday in Paris, Jean Jullien was hanging onto his radio, listening to every single word.
It was like reliving the horrors of the Charlie Hebdo attacks; the news kept getting grimmer.
With raw emotions, the French illustrator who was traveling for the holidays, took to pen and paper.
Overwhelmed with sadness, he drew an Eiffel Tower standing at the center of a peace sign.
It was all he wanted to say at that moment. That was how he felt.
“I thought we needed a message for peace,” he told CNN.
He shared his illustration on Twitter Friday evening, and it soon went viral, with people sharing it across social media.
“This is the first thing I drew. I can’t think of anything else to say,” he said.
Finding a moment of reflection
The streets of Paris seemed to stand still Saturday morning. The city seemed like it was under lockdown, said Chris Morrow, an American traveler.
The worst of the Paris attacks was at the Bataclan concert hall, where at least 80 people died during Friday’s attack. At least 120 people were killed across the city.
Outside the steps of the Bataclan concert hall the following day, a man sat down at a mobile piano and started playing John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
A crowd of people gathered and stood in silence, listening to the music. The song ended as quickly as it began, but the message was clear. It was the same message Jullien tried to share with his Eiffel Tower illustration.
“Peace is a universal message,” Jullien said.