The 63-year-old chauffeur, an avid football fan, had just dropped off some passengers outside the stadium when a suicide bomber blew himself up

Manuel Colaço Dias was not meant to be working on the night he was killed. The Portuguese chauffeur had worked for a shuttlebus company for about 10 years until retiring three years ago, but still took the odd fare when passengers specifically requested him, as happened two Fridays ago.

Pulling up outside the main entrance of the Stade de France in Paris, he dropped off a group of spectators running late to watch France play Germany in an international football friendly.



“He did not want to work that night, but nonetheless agreed to the job,” said his son, Michael Dias. It was to be the 63-year-old’s last journey.

Moments after Dias dropped off his passengers, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the first of three explosions so powerful they shook the foundations of France’s national stadium.

Dias was killed on the spot, the sole victim of the Stade de France blasts. He was the first of 130 fatalities during more than three hours of terror across the French capital.

Michael Dias told the Guardian that his father had telephoned his wife at about 9pm – 20 minutes before the blast that killed him. “He told her he was going to have a coffee and that was the last contact we had with him,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Manuel Dias would regularly drive clients to matches and often watch games with them, his son said. Photograph: Family Handout

Michael and his family tried to call Dias when they heard about the attack, but were unable to get through. In desperation, the family called his employer, which sent someone over to the stadium to look for him. They found his car, but there was no sign of Dias himself.

“We spent the whole night awake waiting for any news, but it was only the next morning at around 8am that we found out from the Portuguese government that my father had died in the attack. The French government contacted us on Sunday,” Michael said.

“He was not supposed to have gone that night. He had retired three years ago and would only do the odd trip every now and then. He would [only] do this because he enjoyed his job and interacting with people.

“But last Friday, a group of people who wanted to watch the match specifically asked for my father to take them, despite another different driver already being assigned. He did not want to work that night, but nonetheless agreed to the job.”

Michael said he did not want to think of his father’s death as pure bad luck, choosing instead to believe that “his time had come, that it was his destiny and that it was inevitable”.

He said he was concerned, like many Parisians, about life in the city following the attacks. “It is more the sense of insecurity that worries me. The fear of being in Paris, to go out and eat out. All Parisians are currently feeling and experiencing this,” he said.

Originally from Mértola in south-east Portugal, Manuel Colaço Dias was 18 when he moved with his parents to Reims, north-east France, to escape the authoritarian Estado Novo regime. The family returned to Portugal in the 1990s but later came back to France where they felt there were better opportunities and because he missed his work. An avid football fan – he supported Sporting Clube de Portugal – Manuel would regularly drive clients to matches and often watch games with them, his son said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest In a church ceremony last week, Michael Dias paid tribute to his father, describing him as an ‘example of what I consider to be a great man’. Photograph: Family Handout

In a church ceremony in France last week, Michael paid tribute to his father, describing him as an “example of what I consider to be a great man”. He said his father had been born at a difficult time – a reference to the dictatorship in Portugal – and had moved to France to provide a better life for his family.

“He didn’t want to simply replicate the examples of others around him. He wanted to instil in himself a set of values that he considered noble and to which he identified. Work, courage, politeness, humility, honesty and self-transcendence were for him the fundamental pillars of his personality,” Michael said.

“I want my father to be remembered as a man of great goodwill, who had an unparalleled joy for life and always offered positive words of comfort and hope.

“In his eyes, everything was always good. We were well and truly spoilt by him. He loved us and cared for us. He would pamper us in his own special way. It was an enormous pleasure to be so pampered despite our age.”