At the November 13 trial, lovers and orphans of terrorism
The entrance to a courtroom in the trial of the November 13 attacks, at the Paris courthouse, on May 17, 2022. AFP - GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT
Text by: Nathanaël Vittrant Follow
4 mins
At the trial of the attacks of November 13, the floor was still with the lawyers of the civil parties this Monday for the fourth day of the coordinated pleadings.
Record of hearing.
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From our special correspondent at the Paris courthouse,
“
Ladies, gentleman of the court, Loulou.
The feigned irreverence with which Me Stéphane Maugendre addresses President Jean-Louis Périès is a direct reference to the affectionate nickname given to him by Babou, one of the victims he represents and who delivers a drawn report of the hearings every day.
"
His boards are daily lessons of resistance
", launches the lawyer who has chosen to pay tribute to the creativity of the civil parties.
“
No act of terrorism, no jihad, can erase our drawings, silence our music, burn our paintings and photos, crush our words.
Our creations are more eternal than all the gods put together.
»
We will also remember the pleading of Me Frédérique Giffard and her tribute to the lovers.
“
There were lots of lovers
this evening of November 13
.
Old and fresh couples, straight or gay couples, planned weddings, expecting children… The terrorists knew this because in Paris you don't hide when you're in love.
Couples separated by death or shaken by the attack.
“
Either they were with their partners, and they ended up with way too much to share.
Either they weren't there and they found themselves separated by a chasm, a wall.
“The mourning which has also interfered in the intimate, a prejudice all the more badly repaired as it is often taboo.
69 orphans of terrorism
“
Two syllables.
Two syllables that 69 children will no longer pronounce
”, then begins Me Helena Christidis.
“
Forty-seven will never say dad again, 20 will never say mom again.
And two will never say neither dad nor mom again.
Except in the anguish of the night when these so essential words are shouted, vomited.
Sixty-nine orphans of terrorism condemned to grow up, cut off from a part of their history, alongside a father or a mother who has become a survivor.
There are also all those children whose parents returned on the evening of November 13, but changed forever.
There are also those who were present.
The lawyers take turns to evoke this 10-year-old child who had to walk on bodies at the Bataclan, who would have experienced the pleasures of a concert for the first time and who, instead, learned that his father was not invincible, that he could be afraid and cry.
► To read also: Trial of November 13: the weight and the abyss of psychic wounds
Children who were a few months old when a bullet went through the car where they were, or who were still in their mother's womb and who still have traumas years later.
“
He still runs to hide when someone rings the doorbell.
He does not understand this fear because in reality he does not remember this night of terror
, ”says a lawyer.
"
These are also all children who will never be born
", because some victims have given up on parenthood.
Some had recounted this other mourning at the bar.
Victims beyond borders
"
Being a child victim of terrorism
is
also well beyond our borders
," continues Me Helena Christidis.
All those children in the camps in Syria, who didn't ask anyone.
On several occasions during this trial, victims pleaded for the repatriation of the children of jihadists whom France still refuses to rescue.
To oppose it, some had called these children “
ticking time bombs
”.
A lawyer recalls that they are, like all the children of November 13, whether born before or after the attacks, “
delayed victims
”.
They are also the children of the accused, recalls Me Helena Christidis, citing their first names.
“
Yes gentlemen
,” she says, turning to the cubicle, “
your children did not ask to live in this world.
Before taking up the formula of Mohamed Bakkali, one of the accused when he justified his silence on the facts.
“
You are right, Mr. Bakkali: in front of children, we are not entitled to silence.
»
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