11:51

The solemn ceremony at Les Invalides was a time to remember each of the 130 victims as individuals, with President Francois Hollande promising France would honour them with love, more concerts, and more music.

In the biting cold, more than 2,000 people including families of the dead, politicians and dignitaries came to pay tribute at the “national and republican” ceremony at Les Invalides, where France has traditionally honoured its war dead.

The national memorial service to pay homage to the victims of the November 13 terrorist attacks Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA

Many of the 350 wounded in the November 13 attacks were at the front of the crowd, in wheelchairs and stretchers, accompanied by Red Cross medics, and others in chairs wrapped up in layers of blankets against the freezing winter mist.

Hollande arrived at 10.30am as the Republican Guard played the national anthem La Marseillaise, as photographs of 130 victims appeared on screens, showing them smiling, drinking or holidaying in the sunshine.

A trio of singers, Nolwenn Leroy, Camelia Jordana and Yael Naim sang the melancholy ballad ‘Quand on a que l’amour’ (When all we have love) by Belgian songwriter Jacques Brel, followed by the classic French song ‘Perlimpinpin’ originally by French singer Barbara, sung today by Nathalie Dessay.

French President Francois Hollande arrives to lead the solemn ceremony Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/AFP/Getty Images

In his sombre 20-minute address, Hollande emphasised the youth of the victims, the majority under 35 years old, and how they had been attacked on the terraces of cafes, eating meals in local bistros, watching football or dancing in a concert hall.

“It’s because they represented life that they were killed, it’s because they represented France that they were slaughtered, it’s because they represented freedom that they were massacred,” he said.

The attackers acted “in the name of an insane cause and a betrayed God,” he said. “I promise that France will do everything possible to destroy the army of fanatics who committed these crimes.”

People wounded in the Paris terror attacks and relatives of victims attend the “national and republican” tribute Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/AFP/Getty Images

France will overcome this enemy, he said. “With our weapons, the weapons of democracy. With our institutions. With international law.”

France can count on its armed forces in Syria, Iraq and in the Sahel, he said, as well as on the police and the gendarmes, and Parliament which will “adopt all appropriate measures for the defence of national interests.”

As the French president ended his speech, singers from the Paris Opera academy and the French Army choir led the crowd in La Marseillaise for the second time, singing all of the verses of the anthem. Hollande did not join the singing, but stood in silence and stared straight ahead.

He did not meet with families of victims after the ceremony, aides told French media, not wishing to disturb “the solemnity of the moment”.