At the specially composed assize court in Paris,
Six years after having interfered in spite of himself in the televisions of the French stunned by the attacks of November 13, the former public prosecutor of Paris, François Molins, has bowed to a new exercise. Cited by the civil parties at the trial of the Paris and Saint-Denis attacks, the magistrate, who became the voice and face of the Paris prosecutor’s office in 2015, was heard on Wednesday as a witness. A task “unprecedented for a prosecutor”, in his own words.
With precision and conciseness, François Molins unrolled the thread of this evening which remains experienced as “a failure”. Mobilized with section C1 of the prosecution, at the time in charge of terrorism cases, the 66-year-old magistrate retraced in detail the first acts of investigation carried out by his teams. Something rarer for this legal professional who has been practicing for 40 years, he also confided his strong emotion felt on the evening of the events and visibly remained intact.
“I understood that we were there”
On Friday, November 13, 2015, François Molins is tired. The week that has just passed has been “rich, bizarre and hard,” he said at the helm. “It started with terrorism with a three-day multiparty meeting in Marrakech” devoted to this subject. The evening of the attacks, the magistrate therefore decides to “go to bed early”. But a call comes to thwart his plans: “I am told that an explosion has just intervened at gate D of the Stade de France, and that there is a death”. Immediately, the head of the public prosecutor’s office contacted the head of section C1, who had no further information. He then joined Patrick Calvar, the boss of the DGSI, who knows “no more than he”.
Like many Parisians that evening, François Molins has the reflex to turn on his television on a news channel: “I saw the banner indicating shootings in the 10th arrondissement of Paris and I understood that was there, ”he explains. What his services and his intelligence counterparts have dreaded for months is unfolding before his eyes. “On November 13, we switch to a whole other dimension, which is that of mass slaughter,” develops the former public prosecutor. Already in post during the attacks committed by Mohamed Merah in 2012, then during the attacks against Charlie hebdo and the Hyper Cacher, François Molins draws on his past experience and deploys a crisis unit.
“It’s horror, it’s Dantesque”
But the prosecutor refuses to stay at home and decides to go immediately to the scene of the shootings. “I called my security officers back and went to La Bonne Bière and the Carillon. (…) When I arrived, I came across a sergeant from the 11th who took off his bulletproof vest to give it to me, ”he says. On the spot, he exchanges with “a lady behind the bar” who “tells him about the scene, the black car, the individuals who shoot at the assault rifle”. When he evokes “bodies lying on the sidewalk”, his voice tightens. Informed of the attack targeting the Bataclan, he then heads towards the concert hall. There he found the Paris police prefect and all the intervention forces mobilized to intervene. A plan of the assault is submitted to him, then validated. At 12:20 am, the columns of the BRI set off.
Remained on site until the room was secured by the demining teams, François Molins and his colleagues entered the Bataclan. And confided to the court: “It is horror, it is dantesque. I would never have imagined such a heavy toll. And I will never forget the face of a woman with bobbed hair, her head resting on her bag with her phone ringing constantly. I could not believe it “. The night is far from over for the magistrate, however, and the task is immense. “I got back to the public prosecutor’s office around 3 am, we got organized quickly. We had to assign reinforcements ”, manage the first elements of the investigation, international cooperation with Belgium and organize the care of the victims and their relatives.
“We did our best”
On this last point, François Molins recognizes errors and dysfunctions. The difficulties encountered in the first hours following the attacks are numerous. He cites “problems of articulation between the various telephone numbers set up”, the absence of a “place of reception and orientation of the victims” until the opening on Saturday November 14 of the military school. “Lots of people wandered around all night looking for information about their loved ones. I have seen disoriented, distraught families (…) and I myself have confirmed the deaths of two of them, ”he illustrates.
Looking back, François Molins admits: “Even if we feared large-scale attacks, I think that in reality we were not prepared”. However, the magistrate wishes to “pay tribute” to his teams. “This terrorist attack was not avoided. I have always experienced this type of situation as a failure. And all was not perfect. But I think we did the best we could, giving the best of ourselves to the Paris prosecutor’s office, ”he concludes.