“Rotten like a rotten banana”: the text of a child read at the November 13 trial
A member of the association Paris helps victims, present at the trial of November 13 to support the civil parties.
AFP - ALAIN JOCARD
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
At the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015, the special assize court finished hearing the survivors of the attacks and the relatives of the victims who were unable to testify last October.
This Thursday, a child and his mother gave a moving testimony.
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"
They're rotten like a rotten banana... They killed my dad and that's really not good
."
The words are those of Émile, five and a half years old, who dictated them to his mother Aurore so that they were finally read by their lawyer, Me Manon Cournac.
"
We must no longer give them food for them to die
", continues the little boy born after the attacks.
“
I am angry because they are mean
”.
This evening of November 13, 2015, Aurore was at the Bataclan with her husband Antoine.
She was two and a half months pregnant.
A week earlier, a first ultrasound had taught them that they were going to be parents of a little boy, reports our special correspondent at the Paris courthouse,
Marine de la Moissonnière
.
"
We were so happy
," says the young woman in another text read by her lawyer at the bar.
It was Emile who asked her to say something, too.
So she describes the loss of Antoine, with whom she was at the concert that evening and whom she lost in the stampede.
“
Lost forever
”.
A loss “
so huge that it takes up all the space
”.
It is her pregnancy that saves her and her memories of Antoine, which she tells Émile who “
knows her story
”.
"
I drew on the strength that Antoine gave me
" to continue to "
put one foot in front of the other
" writes Aurore.
She ends by addressing herself, like her son, to the accused.
“
Your hatred and your stupidity will never taint our love.
You are nothing.
We are everything else
”.
► To read also: At the trial of November 13, Naïma's smile
The testimonies of survivors and relatives of the 130 victims of the attacks of November 13, 2015, who have been on the stand again since Tuesday, cruelly reminded us that the attacks literally broke up families and that many children were collateral victims. .
This is also the case for Boris (his first name has been changed).
He was nine years old when his father Mathieu was killed at the Bataclan.
White t-shirt and red eyes, the teenager does not speak.
He supports his mother who has come to testify.
She recounts the morning of November 14 when he had to be woken up without panicking him.
"
I took it upon myself to prepare breakfast for him as calmly as possible
."
Summoned to the Forensic Institute (IML) to recognize Mathieu's body, from which she was separated, she promises him "
not to worry
" and that she will "
take care
" of their son.
“
I feel like I ran like a headless hen for the four months
” following Mathieu's death.
"
Every morning when I woke up,
I had the hope for a few tenths of a second that I was waking up from a nightmare
," she testifies, her voice broken.
The dominant feeling is anxiety.
“
The anguish that Boris will die in turn
”.
"
It was impossible to lose my son after losing his father
."
This fear is so strong that she will leave Paris, her job, her friends, to settle with Boris in a small village in the Tarn.
The last testimonies of the civil parties are scheduled for Friday before their lawyers begin their pleadings on Monday.
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Justice
Trial of the attacks of November 13
France
Terrorism