On May 4, 2021, Chahinez Daoud, mother of three children, was shot and wounded by her ex-husband, before being set on fire in the middle of rue de Mérignac, near Bordeaux. This feminicide which shocked the whole of France has become the symbol of violence against women. A year later, to the day, the neighbors testify to their sadness and their anger.
_”_When you are 30 cm from a person who is burning and they are crying, it definitely marks you”
“I was in my garage and then I heard screams“, says Gérard, 73, one of the residents of Avenue Carnot in Mérignac. “I heard two explosions. I thought it was kids playing with firecrackers. I opened my gate and I saw, just opposite, 20 meters away, a woman lying on her back, the head in the gutter. And there was this crazy guy, there’s no other word for it, who was pouring flammable liquid on him.”
“I was not prepared to see this”
Retired commercial director, Gérard then rushed to help Chahinez. “I screamed but he had time to bend down and light. And when he got up, he pointed at me with a gun in the face (…) before fleeing”. The retiree will learn later that the ex-husband, hidden in his car, had been waiting for his victim that day since 7am. “He had his shotgun, his gas can, his pistol.”
“This woman lived through an ordeal, she suffered martyrdom”
While other neighbors call the police, “me, continues Gerard, I rushed into my garage, I took blankets. But before such a fire, I was completely helpless. And after a minute, my blankets went up in flames.”
“On the sidewalk, the macadam had started to melt, there was his phone embedded in the ground when the police left”
– Jules Brelaz
When he recounts the agony of Chahinez, Gérard, upset, struggles to hold back his tears. “I am deeply marked by what I saw, but I tell you, the most to be pitied is this woman. When I wake up at night, I have all that scrolling by, I can redo the film every time.”
“It’s a tragedy that could have been avoided”
“Revolt“by the suffering endured by Chahinez, disgusted by the defense of the suspect who”said he just wanted to teach him a lesson”Gérard does not hide his anger after “this tragedy that could have been avoided“. The victim had filed several complaints against her husband. “I knew after the tragedy that there had been failures in the police”says the pensioner, in reference to the sanctions taken against several peacekeepers.
“There were failures at the level of the police but even at the level of justice: what was he doing outside this guy?”
Chahinez’s ex-husband “Had tried to go abroad for the first time, he had broken half of his larynx! And this guy, he was on the loose”protests the neighbor before confiding that he does not believe “more in justice”.
After the tragedy, Gérard remained cloistered at home. He could not “not even go out to get bread“, unable to pass the sidewalk where Chahinez succumbed to his injuries.
– Jules Brelaz