• While the trial of the November 13 attacks has been open for 8 months, the specially composed assize court must proceed from this week to the last hearings of witnesses.

  • This Tuesday, Marc Trévidic, former counter-terrorism investigating judge, and Nicolas Hénin, ex-hostage of Daesh in Syria, were heard at trial.

  • The verdict should be delivered at the end of June.

At the specially composed Court of Assizes of Paris,

Both were called as witnesses.

The first, Marc Trévidic, spent more than ten years in the mysteries of French anti-terrorism justice.

Instructor magistrate between 2006 and 2015, he saw the "figures" of French-speaking jihad parade through his cabinet.

The second, Nicolas Hénin, surveyed many battlefields for various media until his hostage-taking in 2013 by Daesh soldiers in Raqqa in Syria.

At the hearing this Tuesday at the trial of the November 13 attacks, their stories strangely echoed.

One delivered frankly on the sometimes vain attempts made by France and the judiciary to try to stem the effects of “media jihad” on radicalized “young people”.

The other explained with modesty the devastating effects that this ideology had on his life.

Two rich and enlightening testimonies which have also and above all made it possible to demonstrate the complex, even elusive, nature of these thousands of French people who left to join the Islamic State at the turn of the 2010s.

“We have already lost”

Marc Trévidic left counter-terrorism more than six years ago.

A media figure in the judiciary, the fifty-year-old described with disarming frankness the rise of jihadist terrorism in France and the tools at his disposal to try to deal with it.

Long confronted with "veterans" affiliated with Al-Qaeda or engaged in Bosnia, Marc Trévidic notes a "turning point" after the attacks committed by Mohamed Merah in March 2012 in Toulouse and Montauban.

“Several Salafists are wiretapped at this time and their reactions are appalling.

I did not think that a human could rejoice that a man shoots a 3-year-old child at point-blank range, ”says the magistrate.

One of his colleagues then tells him: “We have already lost.

»

A few months later, in 2013, the “exodus” of thousands of French people to Syria plunged the services into an untenable situation.

For lack of sufficient human resources, regrets Marc Trévidic, his teams find themselves "unable to process all these departures, we no longer controlled anything", continues the magistrate in a dark suit and flowery tie.

At the same time, the threat is increasing: “We were in total insecurity and the pressure is starting to mount.

A feeling shared even in the corridors of the intelligence services.

“To give you an idea of ​​our state of mind, at the beginning of 2015, one of my contacts at the DGSI said to me: 'Marc, we are tied to a post and we are awaiting the execution'”, he slips to bar.

“Mistakes” and “regrets”

Acknowledging his own mistakes, the former examining magistrate believes that France and the authorities have long believed themselves "invulnerable": "We thought that anti-terrorism would be enough to stem a problem which was in reality a problem of society: radicalization .

Far from stating a fixed theory on what this phenomenon is or is not, Marc Trévidic has endeavored to explain the complexity for judges of apprehending the terrorist risk.

"I'm not going to ask a psychiatrist if an individual is radicalized or not.

In reality, I had in front of me intelligent people or not, people who dissimulated or not.

I can't get into their heads, so I've always made a point of gauging the potential danger of individuals on the basis of objective elements, ”he explains.

But this method has sometimes failed, he acknowledged.

In 2012, Marc Trévidic must follow the file of a certain Samy Amimour.

He does not proceed with his interrogation but decides with his colleagues to place him under judicial control.

A control that the young man, a former bus driver at the RATP, will not respect before flying to Syria.

On the evening of November 13, 2015, Samy Amimour returned to Paris and sowed death at the Bataclan with two other jihadists from the commandos.

Moved, the magistrate confides: “We thought we could manage the situation like that, but it was a mistake.

After what happened, this massacre at the Bataclan, we can only regret not having put him in prison.

»

Concealment and ambivalence

A few hours after the magistrate, Nicolas Hénin, former journalist and ex-hostage of Daesh, also testified at the bar.

Held captive by his jailers between June 2013 and April 2014 in Syria, he described at length the personalities of these Franco-Belgians engaged in jihad.

Among them, Osama Atar, accused at trial of the November 13 attacks and considered one of the sponsors of the attacks.

“What is striking about him was his desire to hide himself,” recalls Nicolas Hénin.

A concealment called “taqqya” also mentioned by Marc Trévidic: “Taqqya is a logical technique for living in society before taking action.

In front of a judge, I call that lying.

»

Our full case file

Very present during his captivity, Najim Laachraoui, since considered as the artificer of November 13, was according to the journalist "surprising" and "extremely convinced": "He did not mistreat us, never laid his hand on any of we.

He even gave us extra food (…) He tried to position himself as someone positive, almost generous.

»

He then remembers this scene during which Laachraoui gave him a “chocolate bar”: “It was the only time in ten months where I ate chocolate.

This is the complex personality of Najim Laachraoui, capable of the worst violence, such as when he took his own life.

On March 22, 2016, the Belgian-Moroccan terrorist detonated his explosive belt at Brussels-Zaventem airport.

Sixteen people died in this attack.

Justice

Attacks of November 13: "There is a gap between the enormity of the crimes and the banality of the personality of Salah Abdeslam"

Justice

Online hatred: Faced with the "surge of violence" targeting ex-journalist Nicolas Hénin, the "apologies" and "regrets" of Internet users prosecuted

  • Justice

  • Attacks of November 13

  • Terrorist attacks in Paris

  • Bataclan

  • Terrorism

  • Daesh

  • Jihadism