“We all wavered”: at the trial of November 13, first pleadings of the civil parties

Marion Gauthier, edited by Gauthier Delomez with AFP 9:20 p.m., May 23, 2022

"They weren't wearing uniforms. They weren't advocating for any cause. They didn't want to hurt anyone."

At the trial of the November 13 attacks, the court began Monday to hear the lawyers for the civil parties, gathered in an unprecedented collective argument.

It is Me Sylvie Topaloff who solemnly pronounces these first words in front of the special assize court which judges the worst attacks ever perpetrated in France.

"They wanted to have a drink on the terrace, listen to music, watch a football match," she continues.

"And they got hit. And we all wavered."

An unprecedented collective plea

After eight months of hearing an extraordinary trial, the lawyer is the first to plead in a full room, on behalf of the survivors and relatives of victims of these attacks which left 130 dead in Paris and Saint-Denis on November 13, 2015. These pleadings, scheduled until June 7, begin with five days of an "unpublished" collective pleading organized by theme, as lawyer Frédérique Giffard explains in an introductory remark.

"How in a few minutes can you tell the infinite diversity of the victims and the bond that brings them together? It's impossible," she told the court.

"We've been composing for six years so that our customers are not doubly tested: first because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time", and so as not to suffer "from having been too numerous to be able to be each a victim in their own right".

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Photos of projected victims

So, to carry all their words without making "mass", not to "create inequality of arms" with the 14 defendants present before the court and "respect the rights of the defense", a hundred lawyers representing two thirds of the nearly 2,400 civil parties agreed to "coordinate" their remarks.

They will plead for the "community" of victims rather than for their respective clients, about twenty minutes each.

Every day before the pleadings, lawyers will say a word of tribute for deceased victims.

This Monday, the memory of Christopher, Thibault, Charlotte and Emilie, Fabrice, Stéphane, Mathieu, Estelle and Marion is recalled, sometimes with the help of photos projected on the screen.

At the bar then, the lawyers follow one another to unfold the assigned themes - quite broad on this first day.

"In the stands of a very full stadium (in France), Jean-Luc squeezes his son's shoulder with all the fervor of a supporter. At the same time, his wife Muriel is dancing at the Bataclan. it's Hodda and Jessica's birthday", recalls Me Jean Reinhart.

"All was well but in the shadows, the cowardly evil is already there. It shoots its victims in the back".

The different locations of the attacks discussed in detail

"Don't be mistaken", then implores Me Samia Maktouf.

"Identify the evil. Because we are facing a murderous Salafist ideology" which "calls for mass murder".

"If we learned one thing during this hearing, it is that those who are in the box are neither crazy, nor marginalized, nor monsters, nor poor manipulated people", had hammered Me Topaloff .

In this "monstrous trial" - "in any case intended to judge monstrous facts", said Me Gérard Chemla, advancing to the bar, we sometimes "searched for a parcel of humanity".

So much so that we end up finding her even when she is not there”.

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"I did not believe in the few too few tears," he continues, referring to the apologies presented by the only surviving member of the commandos, Salah Abdeslam.

"Today you judge those who remain of this battalion - those who succeeded are dead. You judge those who stalled, those who were prevented, those who helped. Their responsibilities are distinct but their positioning is ambiguous", estimates he, mocking the postures of the accused "locked in their lies", who "did not know", "could not do otherwise" and "defend themselves like sellers of hash".

During the next few days of pleadings, the various locations of the attacks will be discussed in more detail, as well as the consequences on the lives of the survivors.

From June 1 and for one week, the lawyers who did not wish to join the collective pleading will have the floor, before the requisitions and the defense pleadings.

The verdict is expected on June 29.