Paris tribute to memory of Sands

Before the France-Ireland rugby match started in the Stade de France last night, 100 people gathered in nearby Bobby Sands Street to pay homage to the Irish hunger striker.

Conor Murphy, the Minister for Regional Development in the Northern Ireland Executive, and Séanna Murphy, the former IRA man who spent 21 years in British prisons and who now works with the cultural department of Sinn Féin, were the guests of honour of Saint-Denis's communist mayor, Didier Paillard.

When Bobby Sands died in May 1981, 100,000 French people marched to the British embassy "to tell Margaret Thatcher how angry we were, and our admiration and support for this young hero and his comrades", Mr Paillard recalled. Mr Murphy said the international response to Sands's death "gave us a lift".