However, some cameras remain outside the courtroom during the Charlie trial.

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Romain GAILLARD-POOL / SIPA

  • Since the 1985 law authorizes the filming of certain public hearings, only a dozen trials have been recorded.

  • The trial of the January 2015 attacks will be the first terrorist trial filmed, using five cameras and fairly precise specifications.

  • These archives will not be immediately accessible to the general public, which is regretted by historian Christian Delage, for whom they could have great educational and societal value.

Defendants, relatives of victims, lawyers, magistrates and… cameras.

Lenses are usually banned in courts, but the trial of the January 2015 bombings will be filmed.

From this Wednesday, and for ten weeks, the Paris judicial court will try the suspects of the Charlie Hebdo, Montrouge and Hyper Cacher attacks at Porte de Vincennes, which killed 17 people, from 7 to 9 January 2015. Filming a trial remains exceptional in France.

Why is this one, and what will it be used for?

Very few trials filmed in the history of justice

Since the law of July 11, 1985, public hearings can be filmed, in full or not, when this "is of interest for the constitution of historical archives of justice".

Only about ten trials have been filmed since the promulgation of this text, including that of the Nazi criminal Klaus Barbie, in 1987 at the Assize Court of the Rhône, Maurice Papon, from 1997 at the Assizes of Gironde, trials linked to the AZF explosion in Toulouse (from 2009 to 2017), or others linked to the Rwandan genocide.

But this is the first time that a terrorist trial will be recorded.

It was the national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office which requested it, and the first president of the Paris court of appeal gave his authorization.

"This trial is obviously of interest for the constitution of the historical archives of justice", notes the court of appeal in its decision, quoted by HuffPost.

Five cameras, archived videos

Concretely, “five cameras are installed, each capable of producing three different types of shots, wide, medium and tight,” explains historian and director Christian Delage.

Side framing, "they film the person who speaks", continues the director of the institute of history of the present time.

It is a private production company which is in the driver's seat, after winning a tender from the Ministry of Justice, says the researcher.

The cameras must also be discreet, because the recording must not “undermine the good progress of the debates nor the free exercise of the rights of the defense”, specify the texts, otherwise the president of the hearing can prohibit it or hang it up.

These videos are not intended to be broadcast to the general public immediately.

They will first be kept by the National Archives.

It will be necessary to wait for a final decision to be pronounced in the case so that the public can view them, on the spot in Paris.

And fifty years more so that they become completely free of reproduction and distribution.

What is this for ?

Upon arrival, there should be dozens and dozens of hours of video.

Who can these images interest?

There will surely be an interest from researchers, in law, terrorism or history.

“These archives also have great educational value,” says Christian Delage.

"By showing a trial, they allow us to understand how our democracy and its justice, transparent and independent, work."

However, they will not be easily accessible to the general public for the next 50 years, except for special dispensation.

Is there a memorial aspect, given the nature of the judged facts, namely the attacks which marked our society?

For the historian, "in the case of this trial, the memory is still alive, because the judged facts took place five years ago".

The videos could, according to him, have an echo “in our society where the risk that what is judged to happen is great.

We are in the news more than in memory, our society seeks to understand what happened, the motive of the terrorists… There is a porosity between the legal debate and the debates of society ”.

In a year, another historic terrorist trial must be filmed, that of the attacks of November 13, 2015, from September 2021.

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