The trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015 continues before the special assize court of Paris. This Tuesday, May 3, the court heard Marc Trévidic, who was one of four French investigating judges specializing in anti-terrorism between 2006 and August 2015, just a few months before the attacks. With precision and nuance, he offered at the bar an autopsy of French anti-terrorism.
From our special correspondent at the Paris courthouse,
” Justice is the art of balance. In terms of anti-terrorism, it is more complicated. For nearly four hours, the magistrate, now president of the Versailles court of appeal chamber, showed that he was still a great tightrope walker. Sign of its quality, its hearing aroused the thanks of the lawyers of both the civil parties and the defense.
The one who was an anti-terrorism investigating judge from 2006 to August 2015, just a few months before the attacks, drew up a precise and nuanced autopsy of French anti-terrorism at that time. The feeling of invulnerability that prevailed until 2012, the transformation of jihadism after September 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq. ” What surprised me at the time was that we saw another generation of young people arriving who did not come from radicalized backgrounds. “explains the magistrate. ” And it is the fruit of a media jihad. »
” It was at this time that the idea of judicially preventing departures was born. The idea is to consider them as terrorists to prevent them from becoming one. Which, in terms of law, is not without problems. It was at this time, in the mid-2000s, that he indicted the Klein brothers, then members of a jihadist network in Ariège. Upon their release from prison, they will join Syria where they will become leaders of the Islamic State group. Considered dead on the spot, they are nevertheless judged in the trial of November 13.
“We don’t arrest people with information”
Marc Trévidic also recounts the wars between services, which are beginning to rage between the different branches of anti-terrorism, the reduction in staff that accompanies it, justified by a drop in the terrorist threat. ” Intelligence personnel, on the other hand, are on the rise. The problem is that we don’t arrest people with information, we need legal evidence “, he explains.
This lull is only short-lived; at the dawn of the 2010s, a very strong surge in radicalization was observed in Europe and France remained very clearly in the crosshairs of terrorist groups, as evidenced by the number of French people killed abroad. ” 2012 arrives and the Mohammed Merah affair », continues Marc Trévidic. This Franco-Algerian terrorist murders seven people, including three Jewish children, a few weeks before the presidential election. ” This shows that France is not invulnerable and this case is enough to drown the French anti-terrorist machine. There is no more fat. »
The magistrate also notes that despite the horror of the crimes committed, and in particular the murder of children in a schoolyard, the terrorist is celebrated by some as a hero. ” I’m flabbergasted, I didn’t think it had come to this “, recognizes the magistrate.
It is in this context that the Arab springs and the beginning of the war in Syria occur. ” Everybody is gone. I have never seen that. People passed through our services whom we had not heard of for ten years, young radicalized young people, entire families. The French anti-terrorism system, from 2013, for me, no longer works. »
As in 2006-2007, its services focus on the need to prevent departures. Except that the workforce no longer follows. ” I always believed in it, but it exhausted the teams “, he recognizes today. The investigators are overwhelmed, consult telephone tapping days after their recording, no longer have the means to investigate the entourage, constitute in disaster files on the candidates for jihad sent back by Turkey…
” All the signals are red, we are in a situation of total insecurity. Especially since precise information arrives on a very clear desire to strike France, research by Abdelhamid Abaaoud (the main coordinator of the attacks of November 13, 2015, editor’s note), French or French-speaking people to commit attacks “, continues the magistrate. ” We are like tied to a post waiting to be shot, we have no way of avoiding what is happening. »
“We are not alone in the world”
If he is not kind to the public authorities of the time, who impoverished the anti-terrorism services, Marc Trévidic does not seek to clear himself. On several occasions, he evokes the future terrorists who passed through his office before they took action, acknowledging that he should undoubtedly have made the choice to incarcerate them.
He also recounts how, within overwhelmed services, some may have thought that he ” it was better to let them go, telling themselves that they would never come back or that they would be killed on the spot by bombardments. It was not my point of view. I was thinking of the local populations, we are not alone in the world. »
Unlike the two specialists of the day before, who had annoyed the benches of the defense by their certainties plated on a file which they do not know, Marc Trévidic shows caution and nuance. He notes the fundamental differences between al-Qaeda’s recruitment and training methods and those of the Islamic State group. Above all, the magistrate insists: There is no generality. »
” Anti-terrorism has always been caught between two imperatives: that of public order and that of the judiciary. We have judges who are still trying to sort out the risk of making mistakes, I am perfectly aware of this, but justice is individual in principle. »
We see the defense lawyers on their bench defending themselves while hearing him explain that we can ” lend a car or an apartment without necessarily being aware of a terrorist project. He talks about these common law robbers who did not hesitate to ally themselves with Islamists. ” Then they shared the loot and each went their own way. »
►Read again: At the trial of November 13, the hearings of specialists in Islamism annoy the defense
To a question from Jonathan de Taye, lawyer for one of the accused, he replied: ” Each individual is different. There is no person that I have had in front of me who corresponds to another. I don’t know if this answer suits you. » « It suits me perfectly », replies the lawyer.
Marc Trévidic concludes his intervention with a confession and a mark of wisdom: “ We certainly made mistakes in thinking that the fight against terrorism was going to be enough to solve a problem that was a social problem.