“Everyone knows what he was doing on the day of September 11, 2001“, says Patricia, a nurse on duty when the attacks hit the United States. Twenty years ago, four airliners hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists caused the death of more than 3,000 people. successively crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Virginia, and a field in Pennsylvania, as the world watched live on television as the deadliest terrorist attack ever known on American soil, through the chilling images of the collapse of the two towers.
Schoolboy, nurse, ground handling agent for Air France… Twenty years after the attacks, franceinfo has collected the testimonies of French people, they recount their memories of this historic day.
Nathalie, working at Roissy airport
Nathalie, 50, now a manager for Air France, was working at the time as a ground handling agent at terminal C of Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport (Roissy), dedicated to flights to the United States. United.
“I had just taken my service. I immediately understood that something serious was happening. In the rest room, everyone was shocked by what they saw on the screen. This attack touched particularly because he used planes as a weapon, a central object in our daily lives. We wondered how they had managed to hijack them. I had to take care of the flight to New York at 5:35 p.m. At that time, we didn’t know yet if the flights were going to be canceled, but anyway no one came to the airport to catch a plane.
Until dawn, we handled the flights that left at the beginning of the day and that turned around over the Atlantic. We were in charge of giving the passengers back their tickets, and giving them the little information we had. When the doors of planes returning to the airport opened, the crews were systematically asked ‘Are the passengers aware?’ , to avoid panic movements. Some captains had not detailed the reasons for returning to France.
“This day, I did not experience it on TV, but emotionally, in contact with Americans.”
Nathalie, ground handling agent at Roissy airport in 2001at franceinfo
The Americans were dumbfounded, I remember their modest tears, and their incomprehension. We were unable to tell them how soon they could go back home.”
Baptiste, cut in his cartoons
Now a facilitator in the extracurricular, Baptiste, 6 years old at the time, had just entered CP.
“My memory of that day is a late afternoon flash. I was coming home from school with my mother, it had been two weeks since I had started first grade. It must have been between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. hours. Arrived at home, I put down my satchel, and sat in the living room to watch cartoons. But surprise, instead of the “Minikeums” which normally passed at that time on France 3, we came across live news flashes.
While a few minutes before, we were talking about our day, my mother stopped dead and stopped talking to me. Very quickly, she sat down on the sofa to follow what was being said. She looked like she usually does when she corrects her students’ baccalaureate exams, she was very focused.
For my part, I did not really realize what was going on. The seriousness of the event was a little over my head because I didn’t have enough perspective yet. But I remember that I started drawing.
“Very quickly, I began to copy the images of smoking towers and jumping people that I saw through the screen.”
Baptiste, 6 years old on the day of the attacksat franceinfo
When she saw me, my mother made sure we had a little chat, just to see if I understood what was happening on television, and how I reacted. Shortly after, she told me to go play in my room. Today, I can still visually locate the furniture in the house, and where the television was. It remains one of the few memories I have of that time.
Patricia, operating room nurse at the time of the attacks
Patricia, 63, now a retired nurse, was in the middle of an operation on September 11, 2001.
“At the time, I was on an internship at the University Hospital of Limoges (Haute-Vienne) to take the nursing exam in the operating room. It was a new start in my life. We were in the middle of an intervention in urology when a paramedic came in to tell us the news. He was someone who used to make jokes so when he told us that a ‘guy who didn’t have his license walked into a tower block in New York’we did not immediately take him seriously.
But a few minutes later a second person came in to say a second plane had crashed into the Twin Towers. There, it threw a chill, and everyone looked at each other.
I only went to the break room once so I could watch what was happening on the TV screens. And I remember very well a sentence, which I heard several times come out of the mouths of the people present in the room: ‘That’s it, it’s World War III.’ We had never seen that. Everyone was prostrate, flabbergasted.
“We were doing a series of operations, so I couldn’t spend my time in front of the television like all those who followed the event live.”
Patricia, then block nurse in trainingat franceinfo
We had to stay focused. We couldn’t afford to leave the patient on the table to shuttle back and forth between the theater and the recovery room. But it is clear that we could not help thinking about it, inevitably.”
Patrick, at the maternity ward for the birth of his son
At 59, Patrick, painter trainer in an apprenticeship center, remembers this day which turned the happy memory of the birth of his son upside down.
“We arrived at the clinic around 6 a.m., just as my wife was going into labor. Our son was born around 11:30 a.m., but we stayed in the maternity ward all day for standard health checks. Quietly Installed in a room, we turned on the television, around 3 p.m.
And there, we came face to face with a burning tower. We were caught up in this image. Impossible to know if it was real, at that time there were no headbands as you can see on the streaming news channels today.
“At that moment, I come out of a happy adrenaline moment, and suddenly fall into a form of stupor and stress.”
Patrick, in the maternity ward on September 11, 2001at franceinfo
We stayed in front of the television all afternoon. Completely overwhelmed by what we saw, we almost forgot the birth of our son. All the moments of happiness of the morning have been erased.
Today, looking back, I remember the births of my first two children much better than the last. And on every birthday of our son, we almost feel compelled to think back to that tragic day. It was a day with two chapters, when there should have been only one.
Grégory, in third grade
Gregory is 34 years old. At the time of the attacks, he was studying World War I and World War II in college.
“We had finished early that day, because our teacher had to pick up her child who was unwell. I drove with my best friend, walked him home and went home. The time to do my English homework, he calls me back and tells me to turn on the television: a plane would have crashed into a tower in New York.
At first, I didn’t believe him right away. A few days earlier, by pure chance, I watched a movie with Lino Ventura, The Great Threat, in which an airliner crashes into a tower. My first reaction was to say: ‘Oh, but it’s just a movie.’ Seeing his insistence, I finally decided to turn on the television.
“With my mother, we watched the horror live, and we stayed glued to the TV until 10 p.m..”
Grégory, in third grade at the time of the eventsat franceinfo
The next day, at breakfast, I remember my father leafing through the pages of the daily The voice of the North. The newspaper had made a special edition dedicated to the event. In middle school, everyone talked quietly. It was as if we felt spied on, or ashamed to talk about this tragedy. Personally, I was worried.
The attack called into question the traditional conflicts between countries that we were just learning about in class. Are we heading towards a Third World War? Our history teacher, whom we met the following Thursday, very quickly explained to us what had happened and took a step back to tell us about the issues to come.
Valérie, on a trek in Madagascar
Ecologist and teacher in an agricultural school, Valérie, 48, was in the middle of a trip to discover the Malagasy nature.
“We had been walking in a natural park for two days, in the middle of magnificent landscapes, canyons and red rocks worthy of American Colorado. At the end of the afternoon, approaching the office of the park guides, we heard other French people chatting on the way. One of them was asking the others which hostel they had booked into. To which another replied: ‘In this hostel, because there is TV.’
We exchanged knowing glances with my friends thinking ‘what balls these French tourists who want to watch TV, when they have just done, like us, a hike in one of the most extraordinary landscapes in the world!’
Arrived at the hostel, we finally had access to a television. In my field of vision, I saw the images of the towers. At first I thought it was a disaster movie crystal trapbut when I saw the presenter walk in, I knew it was real.
“We were in our ‘nature trip to discover the Malagasy flora’ atmosphere, we didn’t want to know what was going on at all.”
Valérie, then on a trip to Madagascarat franceinfo
As the event did not happen in France, we were not worried about our loved ones. We were a bit lost in nature, cut off from the rest of the world.”