For 10 days at the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015, the civil parties paraded again at the bar of the Special Court of Assizes of Paris. The direct or indirect victims of the attacks that hit the Stade de France, the Parisian terraces and the Bataclan concert hall. Some of them chose to speak directly to the defendants.
” I will only say these words once. You were murdered, you died that day. “Justine’s mother recounts forcefully how she lost her daughter, a ” Mirrorball light with imperfect mirrors. She recounts how doctors first confused her daughter’s body with that of another victim. ” I forgave all the wanderings of a system that was unprepared for such chaos. On the other hand, 7 years later, I cannot forgive this one-night stand. I don’t wanna be calm, I don’t and I never will. »
There is this Muslim mother who has also come with her family to talk about her deceased daughter and who speaks directly to the accused: I would like to say to those who presented themselves as jihadist fighters that you too deserved to be separated from your mother as I am from my daughter. My daughter, where she is from, maybe she could forgive you, I never could.. »
This sister who asks herself: I wonder if the defendants before your Court today are aware of how lucky they are to be tried with the greatest respect for the law and human dignity? »
” I won’t hate you. You are my human brothers. », Launches the sister of another victim wounded in her soul and in her flesh. She quotes a song by Jacques Higelin:
You are the blazing beauty
Which reddens the sky in the morning
Like the blood on the executioner’s shirt
Or the killer.
You are the beauty that I adore
‘Cause she taught me to love
And to understand the ugliness
who is the mirror
where I can gaze
My truth
.
” Gentlemen of the accused, she concluded, may you contemplate yours. »
The producer of the Eagles of Death Metal concert, injured at the start of the Bataclan attack, also speaks directly to the accused. ” I wanted to turn to you and tell you that you didn’t win. I’m still here. » « Quite the opposite, it made me advance professionally. “He adds with a smile” And following that I quit smoking, so thank you gentlemen, thanks to you I may have been saved from lung cancer. »
There is still this DJ and music producer, who also took a bullet at the Bataclan café. ” I have a grandfather who is Jewish, a North African father and a Basque grandmother. Hate someone, I don’t know how to do. » « Even if the defendants are not the ones who shot me, some by their actions, their silence, allowed it to happen. Looking at them, I see that they are my age, they also have an immigrant background. I too had trouble finding my place, my father was absent too, but unlike them who chose destruction, I chose creation. »
► Read also November 13 trial: “I took a long time to accept that I myself was a victim”
► RFI’s publications on the November 13 trial can be found here