Reporter Clemence Michallon was born and raised in Paris and her parents still live there. She shares her thoughts on the night that shook her home city and the world’s reaction to the attacks

I have a French passport, I grew up in Paris, I walked around the Place de la République countless times and I went to see the band Cold War Kids at the Bataclan in 2011.

I was 3,835 miles away from my hometown, visiting my boyfriend in Washington DC when I heard about Friday’s attacks. We were on our way to see the movie Brooklyn, which tells the story of a girl who did exactly what I did – left her country to build a new life elsewhere.

In the past 15 months I have lived in New York, London and now Oxford. Not that it matters – grief and pain have no borders, as the outpouring of support around the world has shown.

Friends sent messages asking if I was safe.

Among them was Ida Galtung, 24, of Oslo, who escaped Anders Breivik’s rampage on the Norwegian island of Utoya in July 2011.

Four years ago, I was the one asking if she was alive.

She said: “I think about you and I cry with you.”

My mother had just e-mailed me from Paris to say goodnight. But I had to call and wake her up, regardless. I knew she and my father must have been all right – I just needed to hear her say it.

I texted my friends, who were graceful enough to reply promptly. They were safe. One of them was at home, watching a show when she heard gunshots coming from Rue de Charonne. She muted her computer and thought: “This can’t be real, this is a shooting.”

I used Facebook’s Safety Check to tell everyone I was OK too. And then I tried to do just that, to be OK.

It seemed appropriate to do as the Brits taught us: keep calm and carry on. Do not let the attackers disrupt the course of your life.

But by the time I got out of the movie theatre, the body count had doubled – and it was just about to triple.

I grew anxious and almost jumped out of my skin when a fellow Metro rider walked past me to exit the train.

I ate French food that night, which had an unusual aftertaste of national pride.

There were flowers, candles and – of course – bottles of wine in front of DC’s French embassy the morning after. A man was there, carrying a baby in a panda onesie. The grown-ups cried. The baby did not.

Oxford was silent for one minute yesterday morning as it paid homage to my country. It was as quiet as Paris, as quiet as DC, as quiet as all the places around the world who took the time to commemorate.

You do not need me to tell you what it feels like, to be one of thousands of people dealing with the aftermath of the attacks: you already know, because you are one of them too.