Trial of November 13, week 6: the "duty to remember" is for everyone

A gendarme in front of the courtroom built for the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015, at the Palais de Justice in Paris, September 8, 2021. AFP - ALAIN JOCARD

Text by: RFI Follow

4 min

A graduate in political communication at the University of Paris XII, Thibault Guichard, historian at the Institute of the History of Present Time (IHTP), is also a doctoral candidate at the University of Paris VIII.

For RFI, he follows the hearings of the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015, and gives us every Monday his perspective on the progress of the hearings during the previous week.

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Thibault Guichard

The “ 

 ” defines an obligatory relationship with the past: for those who invoke it, there is a moral imperative to remember certain events, for example traumatic events, such as the terrorist attacks. 13-November.

This formula was imposed in France, in public debate, from the 1970s and 1980s. As the work of historian Sébastien Ledoux has shown, the appearance of neologism is in fact contemporary with a new use. the concept of " 

" itself, increasingly associated with the figure of the victim, which would embody a demand for reparation.

In the context of the trial of the November 13 attacks, to whom is this injunction to remember and what does it refer to

It is first of all for themselves that the victims of November 13th invoke this duty: they come to testify to give a new meaning to their trauma, to no longer suffer the event but, thanks to the story, to put it at a distance. .

Some, as direct witnesses of the attacks, also consider it their duty and their responsibility to come to the stand in memory of all the dead, of all those who "will 

 ", as the poet and novelist wrote. Polish Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004).

To the injustice of the crime, their intervention would like to prevent a new injustice, this time from oblivion.

And then, some civil parties come to tell us about their experience so that their words are heard by the rest of society, in order to " 

as one civil party explained on the 22nd day of the hearing,

 ”what they experienced on November 13th.

The " 

 " is addressed here to everyone: indeed, since November 13th does not concern them only, as individuals, but all French men and women, these civil parties come to the bar in an effort to transmit. The meaning of their testimony is determined fundamentally by the prospect of a future to be built: " 

 " and " 

 ”, explained another civil party. This " 

" operates here a shift, from the individual to the community of victims, to include the whole of society.

Two weeks ago, a defense lawyer, Me Mechin, worried that the trial would turn into a “

It is a question of denouncing an “ 

 ”, in the sense given by the philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005): an excess but also a misuse.

It is not shocking or inappropriate, in itself, to recall the names of the victims of the November 13 attacks.

But for this lawyer, this reminder should be done with justice and measure, unless it is contrary to the idea of ​​justice and the principle of equity in the treatment of all the actors in this trial.

I would also like to point out that in addition to invoking a “ 

 ”, certain civil parties have expressed the wish that society will forget “ 

 ” of the accused. However, it is not for the Court to define a “ 

 ” of November 13, and one can wonder about this request for forgetting. Because their choices and their actions would not fit well with the ideals and values ​​that society wants to project of itself, we should forget the name of the terrorists, and also their experience. By an " 

 », There is a risk, however, of suppressing the phenomenon of terrorism.

However, to fully understand this, society must be aware that terrorism is neither external nor foreign to it, but that it is, in part, its product.

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Trial of November 13, week 5: testifying to reaffirm a denied individuality

Trial of November 13, week 4: respect the balance of speaking, a requirement

Trial of November 13, week 3: confronting the accused with their own propaganda

Trial of November 13, week 2: describing the horror, the delicate exercise of investigators

Attacks of November 13: the multiple challenges of an extraordinary trial

⚫ November 13: some benchmarks to understand

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► Interview: François Hollande talks about “his” November 13

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• Trial of the November 13 attacks

• France

• Terrorism