REPORTAGE
The emotion will be lively on Wednesday in Strasbourg. One year after December 11, 2018, the Alsatian capital commemorates the attack on the city's Christmas Market, during which five people were killed and a dozen others wounded. Today, survivors, witnesses, or relatives of the victims, try to rebuild themselves by refusing to give in to hatred.
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By her own admission, Martine "should not be alive". The bullet fired by the terrorist Chérif Chekatt crossed that evening his two coats, to stop a few millimeters from his heart. "The detonation was extremely strong, very violent," she recalls at the microphone of Europe 1. But for this Strasbourgeoise, survival was accompanied by a feeling of guilt. "The two dead people on Rue des Orfèvres were young people, and I'm older, but in the real world, it's still me who should have gone before them," she says.
"In my second life, every moment must be beautiful"
A sadness that is accompanied by a strong feeling of insecurity, even a year after the facts. "I can not get in public transport because I'm always scared, sometimes I just get out of the tram," she says. Moreover, "no question" to set foot at the Christmas market. "Every time I see someone with a black cap, I have the impression that there is the terrorist next to me," she says.
Nevertheless, to advance, Martine wants to remain "in a process of peace and resilience". And to conclude: "In my second life, every moment must be beautiful".
"I have never had a feeling of hate"
Among the victims mortally touched by Martine that night, Bartek, a young musician. Questioned by Europe 1, her friend Claire, like all her entourage, perhaps embodies this resilience Strasbourg. "We were all damaged, terrified, stunned," concedes the young woman, "but we should not respond to this violence with new violence."
"I have never had a feeling of hate," she says, claiming to be inspired by the example of the mother of her friend killed a year ago. "It's the greatness of Bartek's mom who, a few days after losing her son, wrote a message to the terrorist's parents telling them that she was sending her compassion to those who had lost a son as well," says Claire. . "When there are such great people around you, it's something that takes you up."
No break-up of society in Strasbourg
This resilience, Dominique Mastelli, psychiatrist at Strasbourg University Hospitals and leader of the medical-psychological emergency unit set up at the time of the tragedy, also notes it. "Overall, in Strasbourg, there was not this effect of break-up of society, no rise of one group against another", he explains to Europe 1, saying that "the picture is not not so bad, or even more favorable compared to other situations, given the impact ".
If for victims, "an indelible impact" will remain, "next to that, there are other situations, groups of young people, musicians, who have been able to regroup and use mutual forces to cross this event and build something after the chaos, "the doctor still analyzes.
And Wednesday evening, at 19:45, when, a year ago, began the attack, the bells will ring throughout the city, while the Strasbourg are invited to place a candle at their window, says the mayor of the city Roland Ries, "to show their solidarity and the fact that they do not forget".