Trial of the attack of Magnanville: seven years later, the drama remains present in the minds of the inhabitants

Wilfried Devillers, edited by Laura Laplaud / Photo credits: DOMINIQUE FAGET / AFP 09:25, September 25, 2023

On June 13, 2016, a terrorist broke into the home of a police couple and killed them in front of their three-year-old sons. The stabbing murder of Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, 42, deputy commander of the Mureaux police station and his companion Jessica Schneider, 36, administrative officer at the Mantes-la-Jolie police station, deeply and lastingly shocked the police and residents. The trial of Mohamed Lamine Aberouz, alleged accomplice of the assassin, opens Monday before the special assize court of Paris. Seven years later, the tragedy of Magnanville remains present in the minds of local residents.

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"For several years, mistrust persisted"

A modest subdivision of new houses, hardly anyone in the streets, just a few inhabitants who hurry without turning around to return home... By the time the day goes down, almost every house has the shutters down. This district of Magnanville was considered quiet and uneventful until that terrible evening in June 2016.

It's not easy to forget, admits Patrick at the microphone of Europe 1. "I live right behind, I often walk my dogs in front of the house so I think about it," he says. Nothing in the alley where the police couple lived today recalls the tragedy but Julie, a teacher in the neighborhood college, remembers perfectly the astonishment that followed the tragedy. "For several years, a mistrust persisted, the students were afraid, that's what was hard... We must not forget what happened," she said.

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A double murder inscribed in the history of the commune, believes Nour-Islam. "When we talk about Magnanville to people who do not come from here, they make the direct link with what happened, it's something that will stay," he said. There is only one trial that can turn the page, slips a resident before looking away and closing her door.

"We know that when you join the police, you also take your family with you"

An attack that had an effect "September 11" on all police officers, says Matthieu Valet, spokesman for the independent union of police commissioners (SICP), on Europe 1. "We owe this trial first and foremost to Mathieu. This child who saw his mother's throat slit by this Islamist terrorist who was [then] shot by the RAID. All the police thought it could happen to them. We know that when you join the police, you also take your family with you because today, you know that you are targets."

"Since June 13, 2016, we knew that the police were embarrassing thugs, criminals, terrorists... Remember, we were coming out of a period of deep fear, we had lost a lot of police officers on January 7, 2015, January 13, 2015. The France was hit hard and it was the police who allowed the Republic to stand because we are attached to our freedom."