Guillaume Valette “came out alive and physically unharmed” of Bataclan on November 13, 2015, but he “received psychic bullets which slowly but surely killed him. ” Before the special assize court, Tuesday, October 26, the relatives of this thirty-something who committed suicide in November 2017, took the stand. They all told how Guillaume, considered the 131st victim of the attacks, was “invaded by post-traumatic stress to the point of ending his life “.
“Since he is no longer there to do it, it is I who will tell you his 13-November “, announces his father, Alain. During the attack on the Bataclan, Guillaume hides in a lodge. For hours he “saw nothing, but heard everything “, testifies the man in the blue suit, seated in front of the court. Her son is “Mark” by the “cries of the wounded”, but also “the horror” of the pit he discovered when he was evacuated. “My life will not be the same”, warns the young man after the attacks.
“We immediately understood that there would be a before and an after Bataclan.”
Alain, father of Guillaume Valetteat the November 13 trial
Guillaume’s post-Bataclan split into “two periods”. He first faces to a state of post-traumatic stress and withdraws into itself. Alain remembers Guillaume’s tears “to first anniversary of the attacks “. “I will never forget the sound of those machine guns”, said the boy to his parents. “It was the first time he told us about the attacks. It lasted 30 seconds, and it closed again”, Alain breathes.
From the summer of 2017, the state of Guillaume “empire” and turns into “hypochondriac delirium mixed with major depression”. “The psychiatrists put these words on Guillaume’s care path, but at the time, we were destitute parents”, his father confides. A “first alert” occurs in July. In the middle of the night, Guillaume wakes up “yelling”. A few days later, he suffered an anxiety attack at work. It was during this period that Guillaume convinced himself that he was suffering from a serious illness, despite the medical examinations which attest to his good physical health.
“We watched helplessly the deterioration of his condition” psychic, continues Alain. In August 2017, Guillaume was taken to the emergency room, then admitted to psychiatry. “Until his death, he will never leave the hospital course.” Guillaume ends his life on November 19, 2017 in his room. He leaves a note in which “He persists” and evokes a “esophageal cancer” untreated. “The psychiatrists understood too late”, deplores Alain. Through the story of his son, he hopes to show that “mental injuries should be better understood and better apprehended”.
“I have alerted so many times. If I had been listened to, he would be at the stand to testify about his Bataclan.”
Guillaume Valette’s motherin a letter read at the November 13 trial
“All the victims of November 13 are war wounded “, insists his mother in a letter read at court by Frédéric, one of Guillaume’s brothers. “Terrorism did not kill him on November 13, 2015, terrorism killed him slowly”, she wrote again.
“Are we weak because we can’t stand violence or because we end up accepting it?” asks another brother of Guillaume. He committed suicide “not because he was weak, but because he was psychically hurt”, insists at the helm Christophe, at the next to his relatives. “For us Guillaume Valette, it is the 131st victim. By testifying I share our pain with you and I give you his story”, he concludes.