The long read: On 13 November 2015, 130 people were murdered by Islamist extremists. Six years later, the trial began.
On 13 November 2015, 130 people were murdered by Islamist extremists. Six years later, the trial began. I attended court every day to try to understand the killers’ motivations and hear from those whose lives had been irrevocably changed
In general, the comment was seen as a provocation. Still, it left me thinking. It invokes the so-called “defence of rupture”, introduced in 1987 by the hugely provocative lawyer Jacques Vergès during the trial of the Nazi officer Klaus Barbie. Granted, said Vergès, Barbie tortured prisoners in Lyon during the German occupation of France, but the French army did the same in Algeria in the 60s.
How long it took the officer to do this is unclear. One would rather not imagine what his nights were like. And since the killers spoke at the beginning, and since the court had to hear their words without listening to the tape, it was the police officer himself, Patrick Bourbotte, who read them out. He said: “I’ll have to speak the terrorists’ words. It’s not the easiest thing I’ve had to do in my career as a judicial police officer.
The presiding judge, whose affable firmness we’ve come to appreciate, made a slip of the tongue for which he immediately apologised: so as not to burden the court and to “avoid repetition”, he said, the plaintiffs’ lawyers should confer with each other and their clients. Just what would that mean, to “avoid repetition”? Of course, there are things that all those who were on the terraces – since we’re dealing with the terraces this week – say.
Listening to Georges, I remember what Abdeslam said a few days earlier. Something like: “Yes, it’s a shame that there were Muslims among the victims. That’s not what we wanted.” When the comment raised a hue and cry, Abdesalam said that people weren’t trying hard enough to understand him, and that they should “leave the doors of dialogue open”. For many, myself included, that took the biscuit.
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