After more than a year of work, the gigantic courtroom built especially to accommodate the “extraordinary” trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015, which opens in September, is ready.

AFP was able to visit the huge room built from scratch and placed in the room of the lost steps of the historic courthouse in Paris, on the Ile de la Cité.

It will then be able to house other major trials, but is intended to be deconstructed in a few years.

It is there that from September 8, the 14 defendants present, including Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the commandos who struck Paris and Saint-Denis and left 131 dead and hundreds wounded, will be tried under very close surveillance. on the bar terraces, at the Bataclan, and at the Stade de France.

The trial is expected to last around eight months.

In total, the room can accommodate 550 people

The room is 45 meters long and 15 meters wide. In front of the magistrates of the special assize court, desks furnished with long microphones will allow 24 defense lawyers on one side, 42 of the civil party opposite, to sit down. The 11 defendants who appear detained will take their places in a single long glass box, largely surrounded by gendarmes. The three who appear free will be seated on chairs or folding seats in front of them. In front of them, the three magistrates of the national anti-terrorism prosecution (Pnat).

Then, in the length of the room facing the courtyard, dozens of rows of brand new light wood benches were installed along a central corridor, to accommodate the rest of the more than 300 lawyers expected, as well as civil parties and journalists.

In total, the room can accommodate 550 people.

Civil parties, journalists and the public will also be able to follow the proceedings from around fifteen broadcast rooms available in the palace.

In the very modern room, the columns of the historic courthouse are visible, as well as statues that have not been moved, and appear behind glass screens.

A clock was hung on the wall.

All that remains is to install, above the court, the traditional scales of justice which will watch over the debates.

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Attacks of November 13: Web-radio, retransmission and multiple rooms… The organization of the “extraordinary” trial unveiled

  • Trial

  • Society

  • Justice

  • Terrorism

  • Terrorist attacks in Paris

  • Salah Abdeslam