The wait, then the relief. All afternoon, the same scene; : children and parents who fall into each other’s arms, often in tears. As if to exorcise fear. In front of the Gambetta-Carnot school complex, in Arras, in Pas-de-Calais, dozens and dozens of families experienced anguish.
This Friday, around 11 a.m., a 20-year-old young man from Chechnya, Russia, was arrested by the police at the school. He is accused of stabbing two middle school teachers and the head chef. A French teacher has died. the other two are between life and death. A third person was more lightly injured. An investigation was entrusted to the anti-terrorism prosecution.
“We were asked to evacuate”
For the students who witnessed the tragedy, this day will forever be remembered. “We were asked to evacuate because the killer was there,” says Eloïne, sobs in her voice. We had to take refuge on permanent leave. » For his mother, Nadège, “we will have to erase the images now”. Warned directly by her daughter, she admits to having experienced a moment of panic. “I told him to go and hide. » Then the wait, until her daughter comes out in the middle of the afternoon.
Like her, hundreds of parents gathered behind the establishment which was confined immediately after the attack. The Gambetta-Carnot housing estate has 1,600 teenagers and the release has been slow. Especially since the students who had been direct witnesses had to wait a little longer to be interviewed by the investigators.
A wait sometimes badly experienced. “My son has been waiting in a room for two and a half hours without knowing what will happen, do you think that’s normal? He would not be better off with us to be reassured,” protests a father, also a teacher. A mother tries to maintain as much contact as possible with her son by telephone. “That’s it, he’s being questioned, it shouldn’t be long,” she tells us.
“It’s barbaric. We are all very shocked”
On the other hand, another father has no news. And for good reason, his son was punished and was not allowed to take his cell phone that very morning. “We should never do that because the wait is unbearable,” he regrets. A high school maths teacher, Christine A., comes to talk with the parents: “There are still around twenty children left, they will go out one after the other.”
She saw nothing, but remains consumed by anxiety. “It’s horrible, this hatred!” And this unpredictability! It is barbarism. We are all very shocked,” she said, tears in her voice. Hands are raised when a silhouette appears in the distance. ” We are here ! “. A new family meets. Arms come together, hearts finally beat together. Even a thirty-year-old teacher and his trembling mother.
Fabrice is also expecting his son Noah. He is a teacher in a college located a few hundred meters from Gambetta-Carnot. “Obviously, I’m having difficulty with this because I tell myself that I don’t work far away and that… But it’s for my son that I’m afraid at the moment. »
“We heard shouting ‘where is he? Where is he?’ »
Because some students have actually encountered horror directly. “I saw the teacher bleeding to death,” says Bartolomé, 11 and a half years old. Lola, 15, fainted and had to be taken care of by emergency services, as evidenced by the health card she wears around her neck. “We heard shouting ‘where is he? Where is he?’ Then we were confined to a classroom and the hardest part was waiting without knowing what was happening. »
Camille saw nothing, unlike her brother. “According to what he told us on the phone, he has blood stains on his t-shirt so he must have been quite close,” said this second grade student. It’s a heavy story because we didn’t think it would happen in our establishment. We see that on TV in America, but not here. »
With his eye glued to the laptop, Ahmed returned on purpose from Paris where he works in a hospital. “My son called me to say, ‘Something crazy is happening. Then it was my daughter’s turn, crying,” he explains. He is still waiting for his daughter, held in the witness room. “We didn’t expect something like that. Arras is a quiet town. My heart goes out to the families of the victims and I hope that there will not be too much trauma. »
“He never attended the mosque”
For him, the shock is all the greater because Mohamed M. would have shouted “Allahu Akbar”* and that he therefore claimed to be of the Muslim religion. “I am at the mosque office and I can tell you that I saw the photo of the individual who was arrested: he never attended the mosque,” he assures.
In front of the barrage of police officers who prevent access to the high school and college, Gersandre waits, maintaining a certain relaxation. This second year high school student has just been questioned by the police but she can’t leave yet. “I live in Beauvais and I am an intern. And for the moment, I cannot yet go and get my bag from the boarding school as long as the minister and the president are there,” she laments. However, she only wants one thing: to escape this place.
The Gambetta-Carnot campus will be open on Saturday for students who wish to speak. But there will be no classes. And Lola assures us: “We were told that if we didn’t come on Monday, it didn’t matter”
* None of the students interviewed mentioned such a cry.