“We always hesitate between a need to forget and a desire to remember”, explained Saturday November 13 on franceinfo Arthur Dénouveaux, president of the association Life For Paris, survivor of the Bataclan, on the occasion of the commemorations of the six years of the attacks of November 13. “The victims are happy that we can meet again and happy that there is some form of media attention”, added the survivor.
franceinfo: These commemorations are taking place this year in the midst of the trial of the November 13 attacks. Do you feel that it changes anything in the way you approach them?
Arthur Dénouveaux: Completely. If you want, every year, one of the goals of these commemorations was to remember that on November 13, it’s not just the Bataclan, it’s also the Stade de France and the terraces. I believe that these weeks of testimony which took place at the trial made it possible to really anchor in the collective memory all the individual memories and those of all places, of almost all the experiences which took place on November 13th. So, we feel that something has changed and we feel that this part of the speech is no longer necessary and that we will perhaps start to look to the aftermath.
The trial is experienced differently for the victims, the families and the survivors. Is it the same for these commemorations?
Sure. There are people who we know do not come to the commemorations because they do not make it, because there is too much grief. It’s something that doesn’t fit with the mourning that they want to have this November 13th. All this is done all the same with great respect and benevolence. On the contrary, for the majority of people, things are going well and the victims are happy that we can meet again and happy that there is some form of media attention. We always hesitate between a need to forget and a desire to remember. The fact that the media are interested in shows us all the same that our ordeal was not completely in vain and that it continues to interest society in general. It is lived positively.
What is the work today of your association, Life for Paris, which brings together 650 victims and first responders on the scene?
We had several phases, obviously. At the beginning, we mainly worked on psychological reconstruction, compensation work. We then looked at memory, then at trial.
“At the end of the trials, we will have to give ourselves a horizon to decide on our dissolution. It will not be a way of saying that our bonds of friendship, that our community is disappearing. It will be a way of saying that we must move on. a step.”
Arthur Dénouveaux, survivor of the Bataclanto franceinfo
We do not need a 1901 law association that plays a role in society as strong as what Life for Paris can play.