After five weeks of hearing, a first series of hearings of civil parties ended Thursday, October 28 at the trial of the attacks of November 13 in Paris. In total, 350 people have been interviewed since the opening of the trial before the Special Assize Court. Among the latest hearings, those of the presidents of the two associations of victims.
Arthur Dénouveaux, president of Life for Paris, confided on franceinfo after having testified in court. “We hurt each other but we can hope this will be the last time”, testifies the one who is also survivor of the attack of Bataclan
franceinfo: During your testimony, you wanted to broadcast a video of the concert before the attack, then a sound recording of the terrorists’ claims during the attack. What was your goal?
Arthur Dénouveaux: During these first five weeks, civil parties came to describe in detail the horror of what had happened to them and the difficulty of their reconstruction. It was very important, but I also believe that there are elements in the file that go beyond what we are able to say by speaking. We know that there are images, videos and sounds that show in a very raw way what happened that evening. It seemed important to me that at least we open the debate on whether some should be broadcast. From the start, the choice was to say: let’s be careful, let’s not risk waking up from post-traumatic stress after these five weeks when, in reality, we went into a lot of detail, into the word. I thought the question should be asked. I suggested that we watch a video of the start of the concert where there is no violence so that everyone realizes what the video can bring to what we could not completely imagine. This led the president to say: “All in all, we can listen.” It’s four freezing minutes and thirty seconds, a mix of regular threats like “If you move, I’ll kill you” with more political demands and a message of revenge.
You also came back to the question of victims. You yourself are a victim of these November 13 attacks. What do you think it is to be a victim of these attacks?
Being a victim of these attacks has consequences on three levels. First of all, it means being separated from society, from what we were before and having a certain sacred aura because there is a sacredness of victims. Then there is something strange because we were not targeted for what we were but for what we represented. You are a victim instead of someone else. Finally, the last step is that we are the victim of a very particular attack, that of November 13th which marked French society so deeply that it has become somewhat of a separate reality, with its share of fantasies and conspiracy. When you are a victim of November 13, you are therefore a victim of all of this at the same time and this explains why six years later, people are still so marked.
The Life for Paris association, which has 450 members, will be dissolved after the trial. Why did you make this choice?
At the helm of this trial, there is a space of serenity which is quite incredible. We find ourselves in front of magistrates who listen to you and, strangely, we feel good there. The idea was to say to ourselves: we create an association because we need a kind of crutch, a shell, both to talk to each other but also to talk to the rest of society and to politicians. After the trial, it will be time to take off that crutch and tell each other that we are walking together again. It doesn’t mean that our community will disappear, that our friendships will disappear. This only means that this associative vehicle, which is very well known, is no longer intended to exist, that we will be able to resume a life that is a little more underground.