• The trial of the terrorist attacks of November 13, 2015 opened for nine months, Wednesday September 8, 2021, before the specially composed assize court in Paris.

  • The month of October is entirely dedicated to hearing the testimonies of the civil parties.

    About 350 people decided to speak at the trial, the vast majority of whom are victims or relatives of victims of the Bataclan. 

  • This Thursday, those close to Nicolas, who died at the age of 43 at the Bataclan, recount the pain of the absence.

At the specially composed Assize Court in Paris,

To hear those close to him talking about him, Nicolas was probably everything terrorists hated: a whimsical scholar, fan of rock and "rotten hits", fan of exhibitions and football matches. The pillar, above all, of a blended family. This Thursday, his relatives came in tribe, almost in clan, to tell in front of the specially composed Assize Court the pain of the absence and the difficult reconstruction. The one who shared his life first, then his parents, his two former companions, mothers of his three children and the two eldest, Marius and Nino, then aged 11 and 15 years. A polyphonic story that tells how a stolen life shattered so many others.

The alert was given in the early hours of the morning by Nicolas' companion, Caroline, herself injured at the Bataclan. She managed to flee, not him, hit from the first gusts. Barely informed, Delphine, the mother of the two eldest, climbs into her car, spends the morning touring the hospitals. Without news. Around noon, she decides to go home to talk to her sons. "I look for my words in the car, I rehearse like theater," she explains at the helm, surrounded by Nino and Marius who sometimes put a comforting hand behind her back. She then thinks that they do not suspect anything. Yet they sense that something is wrong. The night before, Nino the elder texted his father. "Hello dad, did you see what's going on?" », An n message remained unanswered. The youngest, Marius, is also worried,he vaguely thinks he remembers seeing a concert ticket at his father's house.

"I hang up, I shout, daddy is dead, daddy is dead"

“The boys, daddy and Caroline were at the Bataclan, everyone is looking for him,” their mother explains to them. "I feel deep down that it's too late," Nino confides in a blank voice. Two hours later, the phone rings again. What everyone feared is confirmed, the body of Nicolas is at the forensic institute. "I hang up, I shout, daddy is dead, daddy is dead," mime Delphine at the bar. Before resuming: “I take them in my arms, I don't know what to say to them. Marius runs in the street, yells, collapses. His eyes cloudy, he says he "felt a hatred that he cannot describe". The same words come out of his little brother's mouth. “I learn of the death of my father, hope disappears from all the feelings I had before. I only have hatred and anger left. "

The youngest of the family, Lazare, born of a second marriage, had just turned six years old. Around 8 o'clock, when she hears the news, Corinne, his mother, decides not to say anything before having "concrete things", cuts the radio off, lets him watch cartoons. Like Delphine, she will have confirmation around 2 p.m. "Lazare eats his pasta, he is happy, carefree, I wonder how I am going to tell him the news", she confides, her hands hanging on the bar of the Assize Court. She then decides to give him a few extra hours of lightness by taking him to the birthday of one of her friends. It was not until her return that she sat him down on the sofa, taking care to use the precise words so as not to leave room for doubt. No sooner has she finished, she sees the boy's "distraught, lost gaze":"It says 'so I'll never see my daddy again?' », Remembers his mother.

"Nothing worse for a mother than seeing her children having trouble getting up"

Then begins the painful path of mourning. Returning three weeks later to college and high school for seniors, the feeling of no longer being an “ordinary” student, of not having the same concerns as their classmates. “On November 13, I was a child, on November 14, I was another,” says Marius, who was in 6th grade. At the helm, their mother lists the nightmares, anxiety attacks, disturbances in attention and concentration that result from the trauma. "Nothing worse for a mother than to see her children having difficulty getting up", she confides under the benevolent gaze of her sons. In 2018, the youngest cracked, and was hospitalized for two months in child psychiatry. “I had learned to live with this discomfort, I thought it was normal to suffer so much but one day I thought of death,” he explains.Little by little he is getting back on his feet, "even if it's difficult". He is now educated in Terminale. “I often wonder who I would be if my father hadn't died at Bataclan,” he concludes.

When Marius was hospitalized, Nino had just joined a “Sciences Po” preparation course, after having given up studying medicine, which was too complicated in these conditions.

He hung on.

It was only this year, in January, that he faltered and gave up everything.

“From the start when one falls, the other clings to the branch,” summarizes their mother.

And his mourning in all of this?

She won't talk about it.

No more than Nicolas's mother, Jocelyne.

She who hardly wavered throughout her testimony.

She bursts into tears as she concludes.

“I feel immense sorrow in front of the suffering of my grandchildren,” she confides.

"I feel so helpless in the face of this suffering"

At the helm, Corinne also tells the story of Lazare after November 13, “so small”. On the tails, there is the life which resumes "finally quite quickly", the little boy who plays the clown. On the other side, there are those years without being able to sleep alone or to speak of his father in the present tense. Like his elders, he still has trouble concentrating, focusing his attention. Even today, she sometimes finds him curled up in his bed, inconsolable. “I feel so helpless in the face of this suffering. "

But through these testimonies, it is also the story of a reconstituted family united in misfortune that is emerging. From November 14, just a few hours after learning of Nicolas' death, they all got together. They hardly left each other for long weeks, moving from one apartment to another. “A bubble”, in Jocelyne's words. After the attack, Nicolas' two former companions “go out of their way” to find apartments side by side so that the three boys grow up together, always see Jocelyne or Caroline very regularly. The latter also recognizes it, without her "impetus of life" and the "support of her family", she probably would not have overcome the trauma of this evening. " Today,I am calmed and it is because I am better that I was able to leave my anger and my hatred behind me, ”she insists.

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