(Paris) There are the dead, the wounded, the survivors with shattered lives and, a little in the shadows but just as broken, the procession of victims of the “Chernobyl effect” of the attacks of November 13th, these families devastated who developed illnesses and pain to live after the sudden death of their loved ones.
“Since November 13, I have only survived,” said Nelly, the mother of Gilles, a 32-year-old florist, assassinated at the Bataclan, in a faint voice. “I am no longer in this world”, adds the woman with white hair who came to testify Friday at the bar of the special court of assizes in Paris.
“I can’t do it, I can’t do it anymore,” she said, overwhelmed.
Nelly came with her daughter Alexandra but without her husband. After Gilles died, he developed cancer.
The court echoed on Friday with similar stories.
Another victim’s father, Alfio, who was to testify this Friday has given up. “My father was overcome by sadness”, explains Charles, his son and Pierre’s brother, killed in Bataclan.
Mayeul was a lawyer and was also killed in the auditorium. He had just celebrated his 30th birthday. His sister Anaïs, Noémie his sister-in-law, Vianney his brother, Chloé his companion recalled at the bar what a “beautiful person” Mayeul was but, beyond these poignant memories, they spoke of the devastation caused by the attacks in the bereaved families.
“There was a Chernobyl effect of the attacks,” says lawyer Jean Reinhart who came to support Mayeul’s family at the helm. Some relatives of the victims died of grief or developed cancer.
When it was necessary to announce the death of Mayeul to their mother, Odile, “she literally collapsed”, tells Anaïs short of breath.
Mom was strong and dignified. But something had broken inside her. She was caught by cancer. She passed away in 2018, she was in too much pain.
Anaïs, sister of a victim
“For the doctors it was clear that her cancer was linked to Mayeul’s death,” she said.
Vianney, the youngest of the siblings, underlines that “the absence of Mayeul shattered lives, couples, friendships”.
Odile “has developed cancer of the endometrium, which is part of the uterus and is therefore linked to motherhood,” says Vianney.
The youngest of the family bursts into tears when he remembers his mother’s last words: “excuse me, but I can’t stand to live any longer, I must find Mayeul and papa”, who died before the attacks.
“Pain in perpetuity”
There are also the physiological consequences. Chloe tells the bar that after the death of her companion, she “no longer had her period for 24 months due to the shock”. At first, she thinks she is pregnant. She recounts, her voice broken, having done “several pregnancy tests”. A vain hope.
Lawyer, Chloé is unable to continue her profession. She tells of her “descent into hell”, “her state of despair”. After having been a “hostess”, she decides “not to stay at home all day in pajamas” to join the National School of Magistrates (ENM).
Having become a magistrate, she says she feels “often out of step”. “When I imagine Mayeul all alone who is emptying his blood, I want to die in my turn”, she said in a voice barely audible.
“Misfortune broke into my existence”, soberly tells Jean-Pierre, father of Stéphane, another victim of the Bataclan.
When his son died, “our family fell into a waking nightmare,” he said, breaking into tears briefly. He speaks of “surviving” rather than “living”.
Caroline, wife of Christophe and mother of their two young children, explains that the sentence inflicted on bereaved families is like “pain in perpetuity”.
The testimonies follow one another and always this unquenchable pain.
Catherine, the wife of Christopher, another victim of the Bataclan, evokes the suffering of her mother-in-law who did not have the strength to come to the trial. “When you lose a parent, you become an orphan. When you lose a child, I looked for it, that doesn’t exist in the French language ”.