Church bells

I went into Saintes today, for my French lesson which is held in the Hotel de Ville. The first shock was that is was so hard, which could be because I haven't been for a month or so, but worse than that was the second shock:- our coffee break has been banned!!!
Then I came out of the building to find the bells tolling from this church, and people standing around the square (outnumbered by the police) in rembrance of yesterday's events in Paris. We had missed the minutes silence as the lesson overran a bit. The church bells rang out for almost half an hour.