“You have to be there, you have to support each other. » Hundreds of people are expected on Wednesday in Grande-Synthe (North), where the funeral of Philippe Coopman, 22, victim of a fatal attack on April 16, will be celebrated early in the afternoon. A murder which aroused immense emotion.
The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. in the Saint-Jacques church, a modern yellow brick building with around 300 seats, where two outdoor speakers have been installed. “There will surely be as many people as at the white march”, which brought together around 1,500 people on Friday, we anticipate in the office of Martial Beyaert, the socialist mayor of the town.
“Anger, incomprehension and sadness”
” It’s very complicated. We are between anger, incomprehension and sadness,” Caroline, neighbor of Philippe Coopman’s family and mother of five children aged 10 to 25, testifies in front of the church. But “you have to be there, you have to support yourself,” she adds, a pot of white flowers in her hand. “It’s shocking what happened. To have had so much violence on this young kid, to take his life, it’s not fair,” laments Nicole, 71, who does not wish to give her name. This Dunkirk woman came without knowing the family.
Around a hundred bouquets of flowers were left at the very scene of the fatal attack, a parking lot at the back of a convenience store, between large format photos of Philippe Coopman. “It’s always the best who leave…” is written, in a child’s handwriting, on a sheet of paper hung there, accompanied by a drawing of a red heart in felt-tip pen.
But according to his family, Philippe Coopman, animator in leisure centers and who was soon to work at Amazon, was the victim of a mistake and was not the person targeted by his attackers. “Philippe was a helpful, loving young man and loved by everyone. Criminals attacked an innocent man and left him for dead on the asphalt. For what ? For nothing,” one of his friends, Yacine, denounced on Friday at the end of the white march.