At the specially composed assize court in Paris,
It was necessary to put a word on this unwavering link tied in a narrow corridor of the Bataclan, on the evening of November 13, 2015. It was Marie, one of the hostages, who finally found him. This Tuesday, at the trial of the attacks, six “soups” – a contraction of “friends” and “hostages” – took the stand. Held for two hours by Ismaël Mostefaï and
Foued Mohamed Aggar, two of the three terrorists of the attack, they told the story of this “surrealist” camera during which “incredible violence” sometimes gave way to “miracles”.
“Caro! Caro! It is an attack ”
When the concert starts, everyone is scattered around the hall. David, a bartender of Chilean origin, is “tired” of his week. With his friends, he sits on the balcony overlooking the pit. Grégory, who suffers from back pain, is also there with his friend Caroline. Sébastien, himself, disappointed by a concert by the group he attended in 2014, wants to give back his chance to Eagles of Death Metal. He chooses the pit, and stands right in front of the stage. Like a kaleidoscope of the attack, their respective accounts of the first shots plunge the court to the four corners of the room.
“I approach the balcony railings and my three senses are activated,” explains David. Hearing first, with “the explosive shots”. Then the “absolutely vile” smell of the powder. And the view: “I see people lying on top of each other, bullets firing.” Faced with this “vision”, the young man with the long brown hair gathered in a bun, manages to come out of his astonishment and shouts to the spectators of the balcony to lie down. Among them, Grégory and Caroline curl up under their seats.
Computer engineer, Grégory observes the pit. To his friend, he launches: “Caro, Caro, it’s an attack! “. “My brain took a long time to collect the information, for me it was not possible”, testifies at the bar the young blonde woman, sitting in her wheelchair. A few meters below them, Sébastien hears the bullets passing over his head and crawls to the back of the stage. Arrived on the other side of the room, this former journalist believes he has reached an emergency exit and climbs the stairs which actually lead to an upstairs corridor. “There was no way out. Either I could go to the balcony, or go down to the room where it was still pulling, ”he explains.
“Why are you taking your things? You’ll die “
Separated from his friends, David finds himself in the same hallway. Windows overlook the Amelot passage. The bartender decides to go out, hoping to reach the roof from the outside. Sébastien imitates him but both realize that a ventilation system is blocking access to the roof. Hanging from the windows by their hands which they “slash” on a metal covering, they see a pregnant woman, in the same position as them, a few meters below, calling for help. Sébastien climbs back up and manages to save this spectator from falling. David imitates him then finds himself face to face with Ismaël Mostefaï, one of the terrorists. “He tells us: Go over there, go over there,” he continues in a calm voice, pointing the balcony at the map shown on the courtroom screen.
A few minutes earlier, Caroline and Grégory were also summoned by the jihadist to come out of the row of seats under which they had taken refuge. Grégory says: “He points me, I get up, I take my things, he says to me: Why are you taking your things? You’ll die “. The hostage-taking begins, and this feeling of imminent death will never leave them. The ten or so spectators gathered upstairs witness the same “surreal” scene described by David: “The second terrorist, Foued Mohamed Aggad, puts his foot on the guardrail and has fun killing people downstairs”.
“I quickly felt that they had nothing to negotiate”
But the intervention of a police officer from the BAC changed the attack. Remaining on the scene, the third terrorist is hit, his explosive belt goes off. His accomplices who remained upstairs decide to move the hostages into the narrow corridor where David and Sébastien had met a few minutes earlier. After a diatribe in which the terrorists claim responsibility for the attack, they entrust each hostage with “a mission”. Grégory “feels himself leaving” when Mohamed Aggad launches him: “Hey you, the big one, do you see the satchel? You run to look for her, otherwise I will kill you ”. The bag, which contains several Kalashnikov magazines, is placed on a seat in the front row of the balcony.
The engineer complies: “The lights are on, there is no more noise, I go down to reach the first row and there, I take the pit” and the vision of the murdered spectators. At the same time, David is responsible for observing through one of the windows in the corridor the development of the situation outside and the advance of the police. Despite the constant threats, everyone feels that the hostage-taking was not anticipated by the two terrorists. “They asked to communicate, they got our phones back. […] But I quickly felt that they had nothing to negotiate, they wanted to call the media first, then the police, but they didn’t seem to have really prepared that part. », Caroline analyzes.
The guilt of having “collaborated”
Put in touch with a BRI negotiator, the terrorists demand a letter signed by François Hollande attesting to the withdrawal of French troops from the coalition deployed in Syria and Iraq. Then the departure of the police from around the room. In the corridor where the hostages are gathered in small groups, the hope of a rapid assault has vanished. Yet behind the door where Grégory is seated, the intervention brigade column is already in place. “When the first shots are fired, we are all surprised and the terrorists first, […] they didn’t think it would go so fast, ”says Grégory. Installed at the end of the corridor, Sébastien remembers “the bullet which passed through the door passed at the head of the hostages.” It’s hard to say that there were miracles that night, but there were. “
A “deluge of fire” then descends in this cramped space. David counted, according to him, Ismaël Mostefaï fired on “27 times” against the column of the BRI protected behind a shield of 80 kilos. But the police are progressing and evacuating the hostages. One of them, Arnaud, finds himself cornered by Foued Mohamed Aggad, who triggers his explosive belt. Rolled up in a ball on the stairs, Arnaud said to himself “miraculous”: “I was lucky, I was scratched on the back and one of my eardrums was pierced by a BRI grenade but I have no perforation ”.
After the attack, David says the weight of the guilt that still lives in him: “I asked myself: Didn’t I collaborate finally? “. His “soup” Sébastien asked himself the same question. “In those moments, I said to myself that it was better to stay active.” Six years later, facing the court, the six hostages paid tribute to the perilous operation carried out by the police. “They are the real heroes”, judges Sébastien. Grégory, he paid tribute to his friends: “We all saved each other’s lives that evening”.