Paris remembers Edith Piaf

Paris celebrates centenary since Piaf's birth.

Paris marks the centenary of Edith Piaf's birth on 19 December, with a series of events celebrating the French singer continuing into the new year.

Organisers behind the commemoration say the event has an added poignancy as it comes just over a month after the Paris attacks in which 130 were killed while enjoying the very joie-de-vivre that Piaf embodied.

Islamist militants killed 89 concert-goers during the Eagles of Death Metal gig at the Bataclan, a venue where Piaf herself performed. In the wake of the attacks, many Parisians and international singers embraced the defiance and courage represented by Piaf and her songs, the best known of which include Je ne regrette rien and La Vie en Rose.

Tributes to the diminutive chanteuse, who was known as the Little Sparrow, are taking place around the world, from Cairo to New York. In Paris the new Philharmonie de Paris is staging a one-woman show by French pop singer Camelia Jordana from 19-21 December, while the Belleville's St Jean le Baptiste, the church where Piaf was baptised, held a special mass and concert in her honour on the morning of 19 December.

The singer's meteroic rise from poverty to global stardom was overshadowed by alcohol and drug addictions, as well as depression and fear of loneliness. She died in 1963 from exhaustion and liver disease at the age of 47, and is buried at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris’ 20th arrondissement.

Her tumultuous life was the subject of the 2007 French movie La Vie en Rose whose central character Marion Cotillard won an Oscar for her portrayal of Piaf.