France’s biggest trial to start from Wednesday

The biggest trial in France’s modern legal history begins on Wednesday over the November 2015 attacks on Paris that saw 130 people slaughtered at bars, restaurants and the Bataclan concert hall.

The suicide bombing and gun assault by three teams of jihadists, later claimed by the Islamic State group, was France’s worst post-war atrocity.

A purpose-built facility at the historic court of justice on the Ile de la Cite in central Paris will host the trial, with 14 of the 20 defendants present, including the only surviving attacker, Salah Abdeslam.

“Everyone has their own expectations, but we know that this is an important milestone for our future lives,” said Arthur Denouveaux, a survivor of the Bataclan music venue attack and president of the Life for Paris victims’ association.

The trial over the traumatic jihadist killings, which were planned from Syria, is on a scale unmatched in recent times.

It will last nine months until late May 2022, with 145 days for hearings involving about 330 lawyers, 300 victims and former president Francois Hollande who will testify in November.

The case file runs to a million pages in 542 volumes, measuring 53 metres across.

Surviving gunman Abdeslam, a Belgium-born French-Moroccan, fled the scene of the carnage after abandoning his suicide belt, which investigators found to be defective.