The trial of the Trèbes and Carcassonne attacks is entering its second week. In 2018, a terrorist killed four people in a parking lot and in a supermarket in the south of France, before being shot dead by the police. Among the victims, Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame. He had exchanged places with one of the attacker’s hostages. Today, his mother and brother came to testify on the stand. Hearing report.
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“ Arnaud Beltrame, he is not only a hero of France, he is also my son “. Six years after the attack, the pain remains acute for Nicole Beltrame. “ But I don’t need a psychologist. Me, I’m going to see nature, Brittany or the animals “. On the stand, the hearing of Arnaud Beltrame’s mother contrasts with that of the ex-supermarket employees who recounted their trauma a little earlier.
“ Arnaud Beltrame had just arrived in Carcassonne. I told myself that he would finally be able to rest a little, I never would have imagined an attack in this city “. In the Beltrame family, there is also the grandfather injured during the Indochina war, this story had a big impact on him, this time says his little brother Damien. “ Arnaud Beltrame was his soldier “, he said. “ What reassures me is that he didn’t just die, he died fighting this terrorist “.
We ask him the question while taking the place of the hostage, did he win? “ No, because I wish he was alive. Yes, because he pushed dozens of people to become police officers or gendarmes. Arnaud was not a hothead, he was fed up with cowardice and laxity, it’s obvious that he behaves this way”, thunders his mother. And his brother concludes. “ Arnaud remained the same until the end “.
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