“It was very intense,” says correspondent Eveline Bijlsma, who was in court today. “You have all kinds of victims. There are people who have been injured, but also relatives, people whose whole lives are turned upside down and gendarmes who had to be on the scene.”
The forgotten attack
On the first day, victims of the attack on the Stade de France, the first attack at the time, speak. “It did emerge that those people were sad that the attack is very often not mentioned,” says Bijlsma. “It’s always about the terraces, the cafes and the Bataclan. The attack on the stadium was also there, but you can say it failed.”
The terrorists had planned to attack the football stadium, where then-President Hollande was sitting, but they couldn’t get in and let their bomb belts go off outside. As a result, there was ‘only’ one death.
Still struggling with wheelchair
People were also injured at the Stade de France. Bilal Mokono was sitting with his son in a restaurant near the stadium. They got the full blast. Since then, Mokono has been in a wheelchair.
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“When I found my son, I was the one who was crying in my son’s arms,” Mokono said in court today. There are no cameras, but there are reporters who write the stories. “My son had never seen his father cry. His father is strong.”
Mokono is deaf in one ear and can no longer walk. He finds it hard to accept that his children see him in a wheelchair.
Confrontation with Abdeslam
Twenty suspects are on trial in Paris, mainly accomplices. All but one of the suicide bombers died during their attack: the Belgian Salah Abdeslam. His bomb belt didn’t go off. He is the most famous of all the suspects.
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130 people were killed and hundreds more injured in the attacks. About 300 people will speak on behalf of the victims in the coming weeks.
“Being so close to the suspects can be very challenging for some, because it is a form of confrontation,” Philippe Duperron told Reuters news agency. He represents a group of relatives and himself lost his son in the Bataclan.
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According to Duperron, the victims and perpetrators are not literally ‘eye to eye’ with each other, because of the position in the courtroom. “Yet the closeness is painful and challenging for many,” he says.
‘The explosion, the sound, the smell’
Today many officers spoke. “One of the terrorists asked my colleague where the McDonald’s is and said she had very beautiful eyes. A few seconds later, the explosion happened,” tells police officer Philippe. “The next day my wife told me to tell our children about it. I told them: you can each ask me five questions and we won’t talk about it anymore.”
His colleague Pierre, a gendarme, has now post-traumatic stress disorder. “I keep the explosion in me, I keep the sound in me, I keep the smell in me.” Many officers speaking today have resigned.
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Correspondent Eveline Bijlsma has heard all the stories. “There were people in the room who started to cry and people from victim support who then came running. There were also people who comforted each other, which was nice to see. But especially many tears, also with the journalists.”
Eagles of Death Metal
Who are also expected to speak are band members of the Eagles of Death Metal. That rock band was performing in the Bataclan when the armed terrorists broke into the venue.
The mega process will take another nine months.
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