Arnaud Beltrame is one of the four victims of terrorist Radouane Lakdim on March 23, 2018. As the trial of seven members of the terrorist’s entourage, killed in the attack, opens on Monday, franceinfo looks back on his heroic gesture.
“What do you want to do with the lady, sir?” These were the first words that Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame exchanged with terrorist Radouane Lakdim. It is March 23, 2018, at 11:24 a.m.: a 25-year-old man has been stranded for around forty minutes with a woman in a Super U premises in Trèbes, a small town of 5,500 inhabitants in Aude. This employee, Julie Grand*, took care not to hang up after the call made to 17. Her conversation with the assailant, as well as the gendarme’s sentences when he offered to take her place as a hostage, were recorded and transcribed in the minutes.
This tipping point will not fail to be discussed at length at the trial of the Trèbes and Carcassonne attacks, which opens Monday January 22 before the special assize court of Paris. Seven members of the entourage of the jihadist, killed in the attack by the intervention forces, are referred to justice.
On March 23, 2018, Julie Grand, 39 years old at the time, had just started work when Radouane Lakdim burst into the supermarket. This engineer, who then worked in the food industry as a receptionist, recounts the scene in the book she has just published by Artège, His life for mine. “I distinctly hear a voice shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. I whisper to my colleague: ‘Shot, Allahu Akbar, call the cops…’ Then I bend down and my brain is working at full speed.” On all fours, she takes refuge in an office. But the terrorist, armed with a “gun” and D’“an immense blade”the mark. “Ah well, there’s my hostage.”throws him the one she calls “the kid” in his story. Julie Grand, who is unaware that the young man has already murdered three people that day and injured several others, keeps her cool. At the request of her jailer, she “call the cops” and summarizes the situation for them.
Face to face with the terrorist
While waiting for the police to arrive, Julie Grand’s brain starts “in total survival mode” during this tête-à-tête with Radouane Lakdim. The terrorist tells him about his murderous journey, his demands, talks to him about his family and asks him questions about his. “I try as best I can to maintain contact with his humanity”, she writes. Hearing him say that he is “ready to die as a martyr by killing as many cops as possible first”she dares to retort calmly: “I’m not ready for that.” Long minutes pass. The captive hopes for the intervention of a “sniper” to neutralize the terrorist“clearly visible” where they are located in the store. These are ultimately “five armed and protected gendarmes” who have “arose online”. They hold “in cheek” Julie Grand and her hostage taker, in the doorway. Radouane Lakdim “slip” behind her, the “gun barrel” on his “skull” and the “knife at the level of [ses] ribs”.
“In my opinion, the five gendarmes, by robbing us, made a more or less stable situation worse.”
Julie Grandin his book “His life for mine”
This mother of a little girl then aged 3 sees herself “die”. She whispers twice to Radouane Lakdim: “Be careful, you’re shaking, don’t kill me without doing it on purpose.” When suddenly a “clear and authoritative voice is heard”. It is that of Colonel Arnaud Beltrame who shouts to his men: “Screw your mouth, back up! I’ll take it!” The gendarme walks slowly towards the office and begins a discussion with “the kid”. “Shall we make a trade?”, he suggests. The ensuing dialogue appears in full in the procedure, consulted by franceinfo.
” – Attention, first movement I shoot (…) I have a grenade, I pull the pin…
– They won’t move… It’s me who is their leader (…) I just want, sir, that you take me in place of this lady, that’s all I ask of you, you will have a police hostage and not this lady who had nothing to do with it.
– So get me out of all these comics… It’s no use, we’re going to talk, we’re going to discuss…
– So I agree… We’ll get them out but you take me as a hostage instead of the lady, we agree (…)?”
Julie Grand, “surprise” by the approach of this man whom she takes for a “negotiator”has “I want to yell at him not to do that.”. She describes in her book “a perfectly professional man”of which “every word is weighed, every gesture measured”. Radouane Lakdim ends up acquiescing, on the condition that his interlocutor gives him his weapon and removes his bulletproof vest. The five gendarmes retreat, Arnaud Beltrame advances into the room and Julie Grand timidly leaves. “I’m leaving slowly”she repeats three times.
“Attack… Assault, assault”
“These few steps are the most difficult of my life”, says the former hostage, convinced that the terrorist will “change one’s mind” and shoot him. She imagines “a cast iron plate screwed onto [son] back, for [la] protect from this bullet. Instead, Radouane Lakdim asks him to close the door. The trap closes on the lieutenant-colonel.
The closed session will last more than two hours. While Julie Grand was taken care of with the rest of the survivors of the attack, the local GIGN branch arrived on site at 12:10 p.m. Negotiators and the terrorist’s mother try to contact him. He demands the release of Salah Abdeslam, one of the perpetrators of the November 13 attacks, and repeats his wish to die as a martyr. At 2:16 p.m., as national reinforcements arrived, the conversation was interrupted. Sounds of struggle and shouting come from the office and the gendarme yells: “Attack…Assault, assault.” The terrorist was killed by four bullets to the head. Arnaud Beltrame is seriously injured; he died the next day in hospital.
When Julie Grand learns of his death, “shock adds to shock”.
“I can’t help but be angry that we couldn’t help the officer and get him out of there.”
Julie Grandin his book “His life for mine”
The lieutenant colonel’s gesture made him a national hero. Stamps bearing his image, streets, squares, schools bearing his name… For six years, France has celebrated Arnaud Beltrame. But even today, the one who carries the weight of this life exchanged for her own never stops asking herself questions. Like this one : “Could he have been saved if his colleagues had intervened in time?” Julie Grand, whose life was turned upside down by the attack, underlines this in her work: “Getting Answers” is his “main hope vis-à-vis” of the trial which opens on Monday.
* This name is a pseudonym.