• The trial of the November 13 attacks opened on September 8 before the specially composed Assize Court.

    Twenty men appear, six of whom are being tried in their absence. 

  • The month of October is entirely devoted 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.

At the specially composed Assize Court in Paris

Leaning at the helm of the specially composed Assize Court, Lou, a pretty mixed race of 32 years old, recognizes it bluntly: it is only after having managed to escape from the Bataclan, that fateful evening of November 13, 2015 , that she thought for the first time of Hans, the man she had been "in love" with for a few weeks. Both had nevertheless entered hand in hand in this concert hall that she did not know, to see this group of which she did not know anything. Like everyone, or almost everyone, that evening, they believed, for a moment, in firecrackers, in a pyrotechnic show in bad taste. If Hans quickly sees the silhouette of a man holding a gun, she refuses to believe it, contemplates a fire, the accidental fall from the balcony. Until another spectator orders him to be silent."Protect your head and you will stay alive," he tells her. In a survival instinct, she crawls in the middle of the "mass grave" to the emergency exit and leaves the room without being physically injured.

Hans was hit in the first gusts as he tried to flee. At the helm, this 49-year-old man, shoulder length hair and a three-day beard, recounts this "burn" which crosses his body and causes it to collapse. "What strikes me is the amount of blood on the ground, I didn't understand how it was possible that there was so much blood instantly. Lying in the pit, he tries to "identify his injuries" but does not manage to know where he was hit, thinks a time to be injured in the legs. The bullet, in fact, hit him in the lower back and went through his body, "smashed a few things in the process," especially his spleen, and lodged in the lung. From the first moments, the pain "radiates", preventing him from remaining perfectly still so as not to attract the attention of the terrorists.He then feels the need to stick against a deceased woman "to try to limit the pain and prevent the blood from flowing".

"I started to feel very cold"

In such moments, time is elastic, the minutes go on for hours and the hours pass in a snap. How long did it take before he felt “gone”? The memories are blurry. He remembers well the explosion caused by the belt of Samy Aminour, one of the two terrorists shot dead 12 minutes after the start of the attack by BAC police officers but does not know, even today, when the wave shock from a second bullet fractured the back of his head. "After a while, I felt that my body was starting to let go, an overwhelming fatigue, and I started to feel very cold," he explains, in a calm voice, at the helm. . And to clarify, as if the question had been asked a hundred times. "I didn't see a tunnel, I didn't see my life go by, I didn't think of anyone,I was just really cold, that's how I was dying. "

While he feels his last strength leaving him, he sees rangers, understands that the police are in the room. Someone comes up, asks him a few questions, then pulls him by the feet - "excruciating pain, but which has the merit of waking me up a bit" - towards the stage, so that he is evacuated. He will wake up on Sunday in the hospital and will be among the last injured Bataclan to be identified. For two days, Lou and the ex-wife of Hans, mother of his two children then aged 10 and 15, will multiply the calls to the hotlines to try to find him. From Saturday 14th, they were told that all the injured Bataclan had been identified. The next day, we confirm the same to them. But Hans is not on the lists of the forensic institute either. It's thanks to the tenacity of a nurse,who scours the threads of searches for victims, whom his relatives are contacted on Sunday.

They "re-tame the street"

He will stay several weeks in the hospital, a "cocoon", he explains. Upon its release, both decided to carry out their reconstruction hand in hand. Together, they "re-tame the street", he "the little old man" who has water left in his lungs and who walks at a walk, she, in a state of acute stress, who jumps at the slightest noise. “I was afraid of everything. He gave me the strength to go outside, ”she insists. Six years later, post-traumatic stress is still very present, both for one and the other. She has never been able to go back to the cinema, take public transport, sometimes cancels the evenings when they are in places she does not know. He admits that that evening, he lost his lightness and his optimism. But both have found each other, have strengthened each other. And Lou to confide in the court:“I am quite proud that, with Hans, we have managed to stay united. "

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  • Terrorist attacks in Paris

  • Trial

  • Attacks of November 13

  • Bataclan

  • Paris

  • Justice