• Scientists have launched research programs that study the construction and evolution of memory after attacks.

  • The director of the Inserm Neuropsychology and Imaging of Human Memory laboratory in Caen Francis Eustache testified at the Nice attack trial.

  • “When a person experiences such a trauma, everything is turned upside down and there is only this trauma that sticks like a cyst.

    There is no more before, there is no more after.

    There are traumatic intrusions that imprison in a perpetual present, which also prevents having a future,” he explains.

For several days, in front of the special assize court of Paris, the victims of the July 14 attack have been marching and delivering their testimonies.

Appealing to their bruised, often devastated memory.

Sometimes long term.

A phenomenon that scientists, including Francis Eustache, are analyzing very closely.

The director of the Inserm Neuropsychology and Human Memory Imaging laboratory in Caen is taking part in a research program studying the construction and evolution of the memory of the attacks of November 13, 2015. Himself cited as an expert witness at the trial of the attack on the Promenade des Anglais, he enlightens

20 Minutes

on this subject.

What is the object of your research?

We have launched a whole series of studies on the attacks of November 13, 2015, based on testimonies and filmed interviews.

Since 2016, we have been monitoring at regular intervals a cohort of 1,000 people who are more or less distant from the sites concerned, according to four circles that we have delimited.

There are people who were in the Bataclan pit, on the terraces and around the Stade de France.

Others who were in the neighborhoods where it happened.

Then, in the outskirts of these neighborhoods.

And finally, in provincial towns.

The goal is to understand how memory is built in people who were more or less close to the attacks and to see how it evolves.

Another study measures the impact on the brain, from a much more medical and neuropsychological angle.

We are particularly interested in the memory distortions created by what is called post-traumatic stress disorder.

We hope to go really far in understanding the physiological mechanisms.

People are monitored by psychiatrists and benefit from brain imaging examinations.

And what are the first results?

New data is being analyzed but, in 2020, we published a first article in the journal

Science

.

It shows the cerebral mechanisms involved in people who are unable to regulate what are called intrusions, the images that come back unexpectedly when one has developed this post-traumatic stress disorder.

And we also show the mechanisms at the origin of resilience, when other people who were nevertheless located in the same places and who experienced the same trauma, are on the contrary preserved.

What interests us is to find how to strengthen these resilience mechanisms, to determine the factors that will be protective and, on the contrary, those that will be deleterious.

For the victims who remain the most affected, what are the symptoms?

Their autobiographical memory, the one that allows us to tell ourselves, is turned upside down.

It is this narrative identity that allows us to describe ourselves, to say "I was born in such a place, I grew up there, I did this, I did that".

With anecdotes, personal memories, etc.

There is a timeline and then facts that are placed little by little.

When a person experiences such a trauma, everything is turned upside down and there is only this trauma that sticks like a cyst.

There is no more before, there is no more after.

There are traumatic intrusions that imprison in a perpetual present, which also prevents having a future.

Repair takes time.

And it doesn't happen on its own.

You need support from loved ones, family, friends, but also social support, the world of work, associations.

And then the community.

It is very important, when it comes to a collective trauma like that, that the person feels recognized.

Can the lawsuit help?

It is a moment that is both expected and dreaded, because it is truly dreadful.

It's very long, very hard, both for people who come to Paris and for those who follow the broadcasts, but it can contribute to an improvement.

I talked a lot with victims of November 13 during the trial and at the time of the verdict and in general, it was life-saving.

Almost soothing.

We can hope for the Nice attack.

With the audience, gradually, the person can find his line of time.

Obviously without forgetting what happened, but making this event also become a memory.

A memory of a major traumatic event with a still important, but more ubiquitous place.

For the bereaved, that may not be enough.

It often takes much longer for the memory to expand again, in the direction of the future, with new aspirations.

In these cases, we see a lot of people changing jobs and regions.

And that can be positive.

It may be easier to build something new than to want to rebuild something that is based on a past that is bruised.

Our file on the Nice attack trial

You also work on the collective memory, on the general perception that we have of these traumatic events, on the imprint they leave...

There are a dozen other studies in parallel which give us information on the construction of this collective memory.

And we see, for example, for the attacks of November 13, how the Bataclan takes a considerable place while other sites affected are in the background.

Much has been said about the “Bataclan attack”.

In fact, people find themselves inscribed in the collective memory because they were in the performance hall.

And others find themselves excluded because they were elsewhere.

This is called double jeopardy.

These people have been traumatized, have suffered, and on top of that they are not recognized by society.

Because memory works a little bit economically.

And this can be harmful for the victims?

The way in which we talk about these attacks, which are public, historical events, how they are commemorated in the broad sense of the term, is of some importance.

It participates in the mechanisms of reconstruction.

How does the Nice attack mark memories differently than those of November 13?

In November 2015, we had to deal with several sites, many deaths and many victims that we considered to be almost representative of the French population.

The Nice attack is perhaps more complicated to imagine.

The memory will especially retain certain things because the stronger an emotion is, the more memories it will create.

There is already the fact that there were families and therefore children on the Promenade des Anglais.

It is so violent, almost unthinkable, that the trauma is major.

The memory will also retain that it is an everyday object that has been at work.

Trucks, we see them every day and this certainly leads to somewhat paradoxical phenomena.

It's even more impressive than a weapon of war.

It also happened in a place that was attached to other images,

which is associated with positive representations.

What trace does it leave for the locals and for those who are further from Nice?

It would be interesting to understand that as well.

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