On the Petit Pont that links the left bank of the Seine to Île de la Cité and the glories of the Notre Dame Cathedral, Clint Little, 47, from Illinois in the US midwest, was getting frustrated. “This is stupid – maybe we can see it from the back,” he suggested to his wife, Annetta, 48, and 18-year-old son, Wade.
The Littles had been thoroughly enmeshed in what is not so much a ring of steel at the heart of Paris as a suffocating lattice of metal barricades, dead ends and restricted zones, marshalled by a vast army of police, soldiers and private security officers.
