William Molinié / Photo credit: XOSE BOUZAS / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 17:49 p.m. on January 16, 2024

Europe 1 is able to retrace the hour and a half during which a young girl was attacked at the exit of her high school in Le Havre last Tuesday. Her five attackers, minors and young adults, allegedly wanted to take revenge for an insult sent by text message to a friend of the victim.

An hour and a half of wandering, kidnapping, beatings and humiliation. Ninety long minutes of ordeal endured in silence, on the public road. A week after the events and while four suspects are about to be indicted, Europe 1 is able to trace minute by minute the savage team of five young girls who attacked a 15-year-old girl last Tuesday in the streets of Le Havre.

It's 17:15 p.m. when Amélia* leaves the Lycée Lavoisier where she is a student. It goes up to the bus stop to take line 3. On the way, on rue Maryse Bastié, she felt that someone was pulling her backpack from behind. She recognizes three young girls, minors, whom she has already met. One is of the African type, the other mixed-race, another of the Arab type. They say, "Come here. You, you treat us, come today, you will suffer, come and follow us!"

Filmed and streamed live

Frightened, Amelia tries to flee to the bus stop. Held by the backpack, the arm and hand by the three girls, she then hears: "You're not going to leave, we're going to hit you." A wave of violence befell him. Pulled by the hair and abused, the girl was slapped several times. Amelia is scared but takes it and keeps quiet. All this under the camera of a smartphone that broadcasts live the images on the social media story of one of the teenagers.

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A few minutes of calm. One of the girls is on the phone with a friend who has just called her. The latter saw her story online. She, too, wants to take part in the lynching and invites them to meet at Place Jenner. On the way, Amelia is struck again. "If you defend yourself, we're going to do worse," his three torturers tell him. In the street of the school, the group meets a passer-by on the sidewalk. The latter, witnessing the slaps that are flying, addresses Amelia: "Come with me". Then he adds in the direction of the group of attackers: "You're not going to hit her, I'm going to call the police."

"I didn't defend myself, I couldn't"

The three girls order Amelia to run. Squeezed closely, she hurries on, still in silence. Always docile. In front of the tram stop, she takes several slaps again, free of charge. The pack gets on the train. Its prey is well-crafted, psychologically shod. They go down to Jenner Square. Where Amelia is then introduced to the fourth girl. The one who, on the phone, also wanted to participate in the slap game. She didn't come alone. A fifth teenage girl is here. She will be in charge of filming.

On Rue Maurice Donnay, the group stops. "What are we doing to him?" one of the girls asks. Punches, knees, kicks... Ten minutes of fog during which young Amelia tries, as best she can, to protect herself. She curls up, hides her face with her hands, her vital parts. "I didn't defend myself, I couldn't," she told the police the next day.

After the physical violence, it's time for humiliation. The four teenage girls ask him to get down on one knee and ask for forgiveness. Sorry for calling them "whores" in a text message sent a few days before on a mutual friend's phone. Five letters that earned him to take off his jogging suits, his sweatshirt and his bra tonight. Amelia finds herself in her panties, in the middle of the street. For ten minutes, the tape films her, belittles her, hurts her. Until it's well checkmated. Then he could do nothing more than cry.

Media and political indifference

A glimmer of hope. Passers-by seem to be coming. One of the girls asks Amelia to get dressed quickly. The teenager complies. She knows that she has to act quickly and, above all, in silence. "If you say this or file a complaint, we're going to do worse to you. We're going to kill you even more," she hears. Amelia struggles to get out of the way to try to come to her senses. Slaps are less frequent. In front of a tobacconist in Jenner Square, seeing the state of the young girl, a woman dressed in a niqab offers to accompany her home.

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In the car, Amelia takes a picture of her swollen, bruised face. She sends it to her mother, who is worried that her daughter won't come home. The teenager, still in shock, tells him that she has just been in a scooter accident. The moment she crosses the door, she collapses into her mother's arms. For Amélia, in addition to the traces on her body of the Le Havre asphalt, the stigmata of this wild team are now lingering on social networks. Where snippets of videos continue to be shared. Below the alert threshold, it seems, of the government information service.

*The first name of the victim, a minor, has been changed, as provided for in the penal code.