PARIS — Even though he was in the middle of last week's deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, Louie Samka is determined to remain optimistic.
Samka, 26, an artist and singer, works at the Bataclan cafe and took a bullet in the leg when gunmen opened fire on a concert there Friday night, killing 89 people.
"I'm not angry," Samka told NBC News' Lester Holt on Tuesday. "I think we have to find [a] solution, and angry is not a solution."
Samka — a first-generation Frenchman whose father immigrated from Ivory Coast — said Friday's attack, the second major terrorist strike to hit France in two years, showed that the country needs to refocus its attention on divisions at home.
In addition to those who died at Bataclan, at least 40 other people were killed in Friday's coordinated attacks. In January, 17 people were killed in a series of terrorist attacks, including 12 at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Related: Charlie Hebdo Defiant Over Paris Attacks: 'We Have Champagne!'
The solution, Samka said, is to "take time to understand ... what's happening in our country — not Syria, our country."
"Look at our people — France, and especially Paris," he said. "You have so many people from [different] countries" with their own social outlooks.
That's why Samka isn't afraid to return to Bataclan.
"I have, right now, a mission to speak for [the] dead people. We are that mission, I think. If we are scared, everybody is scared," he said.
