French TV drops plan to screen Bataclan massacre ‘love story’

FRENCH TV has suspended plans to show a film about the 2015 Paris attacks following objections by survivors who said the subject was still too painful.

More than 35,000 people signed a petition against That Night, a romance starring Sandrine Bonnaire set on the night of the Bataclan massacre and other attacks that killed 130.

The petition was launched by Claire Peltier, whose partner David Perchirin was murdered at the Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan. It urges France 2 to drop the film “out of respect for our pain and our mourning”. Ms Peltier said: “We are scandalised that such a film could see the light of day so soon after such a violent event. Our wounds are still wide open, our grief immense, our lives destroyed.”

The channel described the film as “the story of an impossible love … in a romantic but now a wounded city”.

There are other films being made about the attacks in France, including as US movie called Violent Delights.

Only one of the 10 self-styled Islamists from the slaughter survived. Salah Abdeslam, on trial in Belgium in February, also faces charges in France.