This night of horror still haunts them. On July 14, 2016, nearly 30,000 people came to admire the fireworks in Nice, along the Promenade des Anglais. Tourists from all over the world rub shoulders with locals who are used to the Prom’, as they call it. The heart is at the party. The same morning, François Hollande announced the imminent lifting of the state of emergency established after the attack of November 13, 2015. The terrorist threat seems to be receding.
Usually, Hager Ben Aouissi attends the show from the terrace of his parents. This time, she and her sister offered to mingle with the crowd. Direction the beach, at the level of the Negresco hotel. Hager Ben Aouissi is accompanied by her daughter, Kenza, 4 years old. “We teach him to ricochet, the fireworks are wonderful”remembers the thirties.
Laetitia Robbé, “Nicoise forever”, stands a few steps away, with her 11-year-old daughter, and her then-boyfriend, whose birthday it is. He himself is accompanied by his 14-year-old daughter. They wouldn’t have missed the show for the world. 200 meters away, the Borla family enjoys an ice cream. Audrey and Laura, the 13-year-old twins, walk with their father, mother, older sister and family friends.
The promenade is crowded. Many children. Musical scenes are scattered everywhere. The fireworks are set off at 10 p.m. off Ruhl beach, opposite the casino. A little before 10:30 p.m., the final bouquet bursts into the Mediterranean sky, to applause. A few drops then begin to fall, the wind picks up. “With hindsight, I tell myself that it was a harbinger”comments Laetitia Robbe. “As my daughter and my daughter-in-law were not covered at all, we decided to go home.” She greets her friends, takes a few meters on the promenade with her spouse.
“Suddenly, I hear noises in the distance, like ‘poc, poc, poc’. I raise my head, I see a huge white truck rushing at us. time.”
Laetitia Robbeat franceinfo
It’s 10:33 p.m. Terrorist Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel is on a deadly run. After having forced the security barrier by climbing on the sidewalk at the level of the Lenval hospital, it progresses towards the west of Nice. His 19-ton refrigerated truck zigzags at high speed on the promenade. Hager Ben Aouissi is buying sweets for Kenza at a stand when the little girl screams: “Mom, there’s a truck!” He goes straight for them. “I say to myself: ‘my daughter is going to die before my eyes, we are dead, I can’t do anything, he is there'”.
She just has time to grab the little one and tackle her to the ground. Both pass between the wheels of the truck. “I pick up my daughter and knead her everywhere, like modeling clay. I thought I would find her dismembered”, she recalls. “Kenza then says to me: ‘Mom you are bleeding’.” Hager Ben Aouissi has a piece of ear cut off, the eardrum pierced. His left shoulder is dislocated. But she is alive, her daughter too. Miraculous.
Marc Phalip, a volunteer firefighter, watches with horror as the truck continues on its way. He parked a bit away from the boardwalk. “People jostle, throw strollers on the ground and take the little ones in their arms to go faster”describes this 40-year-old from Nice.
The situation is confused. Many understand that it is an attack. But the turns of the truck cause trouble and the shots exchanged between the police and the terrorist suggest a shooting. Among those who were on the beach, many threw themselves into the water.
Unstoppable, the truck continues on its way. Marc Phalip rushes to help injured people. “For a lot of people, I couldn’t do anything anymore. People sitting there mourning their dead. Others are shouting ‘Answer me!’ in front of corpseshe said, his eyes misty. “And then suddenly I see Greg.” This fifty-year-old American has a shredded leg. Marc Phalip gives him a tourniquet. A few meters away, a young Russian woman is lying unconscious. He carries them both to his car, parked a few meters away. “I burn out all the lights and I arrive at the Pasteur hospital. The body of the car is full of blood.”
He lays down the two victims. “At that moment, a doctor runs out and shouts: ‘Get ready, there has been an attack,’ says Marc Phalip. Greg will survive and will be operated on dozens of times. But the young Russian woman succumbed to her injuries. Her name was Victoria Savchenko, she was 21 years old.
After two kilometres, the truck stopped near the Palais de la Méditerranée at 10:35 p.m. The driver is shot by police. His race lasted less than three minutes. Jean-Claude Hubler, now president of the Life for Nice association, immediately lends a helping hand. “Call 112, tell them to trigger the Novi plan, they’ll understand!” throws a fireman at him. “Novi” for “many victims”. Jean-Claude complies. “Rescue services take forever to arrive because, after the panic, a good number of people leave by car, which creates big traffic jams”relates this 50-year-old from the Paris region.
“With police officers arriving on the spot, we are starting to cover the bodies: a beach attendant gave us blue sheets. We are also covering the living, to protect them from the wind.”
Jean-Claude Hubler, President of Life for Niceat franceinfo
Niçoise Laetitia Robbe also decides to stay helping. “If I had been hit by the truck, I would have wanted a complete stranger to hold my hand as I took my last breath.” She leaves her daughter and daughter-in-law with a student she met a few minutes earlier. “The images that remain, six years later, are the first bodies.” A firefighter comes up to him and asks him to sort out the dead people and those who can still be saved. The request surprises her, “but they were overwhelmed”.
After half an hour, the first helicopters land to evacuate the most seriously affected victims. As the night progresses, the toll continues to grow. Shortly after midnight, the Nice prosecutor announced “about sixty dead”.
Alerted by his superiors, Olivier Le Foll, then head of the sports department at iTélé, was one of the first journalists to arrive on the spot. He is on vacation with his family, on the heights of Nice. “I see a dad, prostrate, on his knees in front of his little girl’s body. He’s not crying. He’s the first person I run into when I arrive. It’s 11:59 p.m.”, he recalls. He immediately calls his editorial office and walks up the promenade describing what he sees, live on the air. “I have no memory of that moment. I was in shock. People said to me, ‘You kept crying'”, breathes the journalist.
The atmosphere returns to him. Silent, disturbed only by cell phones ringing in the void.
“I’m very Cartesian and at that moment I can’t explain to myself what I’m seeing. I say to myself: ‘a truck can’t do that’. I feel like it’s the work of grenades, weapons of war.”
Olivier Le Foll, journalistat franceinfo
At 45, promenade des Anglais, the High Club, a trendy nightclub, has been transformed into an advanced medical post. Dozens of wounded are gathered there, often in very critical condition before being transferred to hospitals in the region.
Until late at night, the Borla family actively searches for Laura, one of their twins. When the truck passed, his sisters, his mother and their friends barely had time to jump the several meter low wall that separates the promenade from the pebble beach. The father, Jacques, remained on the promenade, narrowly avoided the truck. “I tell myself that Laura must have been carried away by the crowdsays her twin, Audrey. But when I get home, a few hours later, I have a very strong pain in my chest, as if the connection between us was broken. Like I felt the pain she had when she left,” explains the young woman, now 19 years old.
Jacques Borla and his wife roam the promenade in all directions. “For a moment, my wife said to me: ‘Look, she’s over there! I see her shoe.’ been laid on it. I wanted to lift that sheet, but I couldn’t. Something told me, ‘Don’t.’ I was so hoping it wasn’t her. If I had seen Laura, lying there, I might not be talking to you.”he testifies, moved.
They will never know if it was indeed their daughter’s body. The family learns, three days later, that Laura is one of the victims. His relatives remember a “Sun”the “joy of living” pegged to the body. “She always wanted to help her friends, taking their bad energy. Everywhere we went, she talked with everyone. She never went unnoticed”, they say.
In total, on the night of July 14, 2016, 86 people were killed, including ten children and teenagers. More than 400 people were physically injured, and several thousand traumatized. Some of them will come to testify at the trial of eight defendants, which opens Monday, September 5 in Paris.