November 13 trial: "I took a long time to accept that I myself was a victim"
The president of the Life for Paris association Arthur Denouveaux (on the left), relatives and politicians including Bernard Cazeneuve and Gérald Darmanin in front of the restaurant Le Petit Cambodge, during a tribute to the victims of the terrorist attacks of November 13, 2015, in 2021 in Paris.
AFP - THOMAS SAMSON
Text by: Nathanaël Vittrant Follow
4 mins
The trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015 continues before the special assize court of Paris.
Since this Wednesday, May 4, and until May 12, the court hears again the civil parties, the direct or indirect victims of this wave of attacks which hit the Stade de France, the Parisian terraces and the Bataclan concert hall. .
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From our special correspondent at the Paris courthouse,
At the bar, the victims parade.
Their stories are similar, the voices are muffled by the same sobs.
The same heavy silences interrupt the course of their necessarily poignant stories.
The hands grip with the same force the texts which they read or the notes on which they are based.
But the pain they share with the court is theirs alone.
In this procession of tears, suffering and resilience, we will remember Christophe's testimony.
On the evening of November 13, 2015, the 26-year-old firefighter intervened with two young colleagues to take care of an ordinary fall in a convenience store in the 10th arrondissement, right next to the Carillon and Petit Cambodge.
At 9:24 p.m., he heard the first detonations.
“
The noise is appalling as mechanical, cold, dry.
The eyes close naturally with each detonation
, ”he says at the bar.
Very quickly, he understands that it is an attack.
The attack began less than a minute ago when the young master corporal asked for the first reinforcements by radio, less than two minutes when he activated the red plane.
When the shooting stops, they are therefore the first on the spot.
To his two colleagues, he gives this first order: “
Take care only of conscious people.
» «
I am already doing a first sorting.
I count all the people on the ground and consider them dead
,” he explains.
“I go into a room and I cry”
Faced with the horror of what he discovers, for a moment, “
the firefighter gives way to human emotions
”.
He contemplates the scene, one hand over his mouth.
Very quickly, the three men bring assistance to the wounded, and very quickly the reinforcements arrive.
Without speaking, the firefighters divided the two crime scenes.
“
I headed for Little Cambodia, because there was light.
I was afraid of the dark.
»
The first evacuations of the wounded to hospitals followed.
During the journey, he realizes that a bullet has gone through the windshield of the ambulance.
“
At the moment, I refuse to think about what that means.
A total of three bullets punctured the vehicle.
With each round trip, the ambulance gets a little more blood.
After three and a half hours on the spot, I leave the terraces.
I leave behind me a carelessness that I will never find again.
The nightmare does not end when he returns to the barracks, transformed into an emergency medical center for the victims of the Bataclan, the main place of massacre located only a few hundred meters away.
“
When I get back, I don't know what to say to my crew.
I go into a room and I cry all that I had retained during the intervention.
»
With modesty, he recounts the descent into hell of the six years that followed: nightmares, joyless parties, excessive alcohol, relatives who do not understand, insidious, constant fear.
The feeling of guilt, too, for having had to prioritize between the victims, which honors and decorations fail to extinguish.
“
I needed to feel sad as if I no longer had the right to be happy
,” he confides.
►November 13 trial: The wise words of former anti-terrorism judge Marc Trévidic
“I hope to be freed from a burden”
Christophe talks about this job that he loves, that he has dreamed of doing since he was ten years old, and that he can no longer exercise.
“
It took me a long time to accept that I myself was a victim of these attacks
,” he explains.
He also talks about his reconstruction, the support of the Life for Paris association, the psychologists he ends up consulting, his retraining in the training of young firefighters.
“
They will be prepared for the gestures of war medicine, I was not.
»
The trial has awakened buried pain, he has been off work since February 14.
“
I resume next Monday, I hope to be freed from a burden after this testimony.
»
To the relatives of the victims, he repeats that he did what he could.
“
At 26, I had all these lives that depended on my decisions.
With three firefighters, we could not take care of all the victims.
»
And since life goes on, he announces that he is expecting his first child for the end of the year.
At the end of his testimony, many civil parties came to surround him.
►By the same author: At the November 13 trial, Salah Abdeslam asks the victims for forgiveness
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