Trial begins in 2015 attacks on Paris that killed scores
Proceedings expected to last nine months
PARIS — The trial of 20 men accused of involvement in the November 2015 attacks in Paris began Wednesday, nearly six years after the coordinated and devastating assault that left more than 100 dead and shook France to its core.
Salah Abdeslam, who prosecutors say is the sole surviving attacker, arrived at the courthouse Wednesday under tight police escort and, when asked by the presiding judge to confirm his name, set a defiant tone.
“I abandoned all professions to become a fighter for the Islamic State,” said Abdeslam, wearing a black T-shirt and black face mask, when asked about his job.
All the other men on trial are accused of being accomplices and will, along with Abdeslam, be tried by a panel of judges in a courtroom designed specifically for the monumental proceedings, with space for 550 people. More than 300 lawyers and nearly 1,800 plaintiffs will take part, and it is expected to last a record nine months.
“It’s the trial of all superlatives,” Éric Dupond-Moretti, the French justice minister, said this week at the courthouse on the Île de la Cité, an island on the Seine River that will be partly locked down by the police for the duration of the trial. “The longest trial in our history,” he added.
The coordinated assaults on Nov. 13, 2015 — a series of shootings and suicide bombings at the Bataclan concert hall, an area outside France’s national soccer stadium and the terraces of cafes and restaurants in central Paris — were carried out by 10 Islamic State group extremists who killed 130 people and wounded nearly 500 others. (One survivor who suffered from severe trauma and killed himself in 2017 was officially declared the 131st victim.)
While France united in mourning in the wake of the devastation, the attacks also instilled deep fears across the country. And in ways, they have defined the national conversation in recent years as France wrestled with unresolved debates over the place of Islam in a country that defines itself as secular; immigration; and the balance between security and civil liberties.
But the trial is also a reminder of the personal rawness of that night for the many survivors and families of victims. Marilyn Garnier was at the Bataclan that night and can never forget.
Firecracker noises erupted at the back of the crowd. Her partner pushed her to the floor, where they lay still, overcome by the smell of blood and gunpowder.
Garnier, now 30, escaped from the Bataclan uninjured. But she wants to see the accused in person and wants the world to understand what victims have been through. “To measure the real impact that this event had on our lives,” Garnier said, “so that they really realize that six years later, it’s still very, very close.”