Paris attacks trial to conclude after 10 months of harrowing testimony

It was the biggest criminal trial ever held in France, where hundreds of people who survived the deadliest peacetime attack on French soil gave shocking details of their ordeal – from crawling past corpses at Paris’s Bataclan concert hall, to being held hostage by gunmen or ducking Kalashnikov fire at restaurant pavement tables.

Now, after 10 months of harrowing testimony from the victims and the bereaved, judges will return their verdicts on Wednesday. But beyond the sentencing, the trial’s platform for survivors to speak out has been hailed as a crucial step in France facing its collective trauma over the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, which killed 130 people and injured more than 490.

In coordinated attacks claimed by

Islamic State, suicide bombers first struck outside the national sports stadium, then in drive-by shootings and suicide bombings targeting cafés and restaurants where people were out on Friday night. Finally, a gun attack at the Bataclan during a rock concert by Eagles of Death Metal killed 90 people.

One public prosecutor at the trial said France had come closer to “piecing together the puzzle” of the attacks. Almost all of the 10-men unit who struck the city died that night, either killing themselves or being shot dead by police. The only survivor is Salah Abdeslam, a Brussels-born French citizen, whose suicide vest was found dumped in a bin, with investigators saying it was “defective” but him saying he backed out at the last minute and fled. Abdeslam is the main defendant in a total of 20 suspects accused of providing planning and logistical support.

Yet it was the trial’s searing accounts of personal pain and resilience from survivors and the bereaved – delivered only metres away from Abdeslam and other defendants in the specially built dock – that were seen as a historic lesson in the psychological impact of terrorist attacks.

Zoe Alexander’s younger brother, Nick Alexander, was the only British person killed in the Bataclan attack. Aged 35, from Colchester, he was the merchandise manager for Eagles of Death Metal. Zoe addressed Abdeslam directly at the trial. She told him that her brother was someone who had no hatred, detailing his life and love of music. She pointed out that Abdeslam had also lost a sibling in a brutal and violent way the same night: his older brother, Brahim Abdeslam was part of

Photograph: Michel Euler/ The special courtroom built in Paris for the 2015 attacks trial.

Photograph: Benoît Peyrucq/AFP/Getty Images Court-sketch made on 27 June 2022 shows defendant Salah Abdeslam (right) standing next to 13 other defendants.