Parisians Remember a Night of Terror When Criminal Trial Opens (Part 2 of 2)

Bart is the director of La Belle Équipe, one of the restaurants attacked by Islamist terrorists on November 13, 2015. Jean-Baptiste is a history teacher in Paris. Nicolas is a real estate agent who lived near the Bataclan concert hall. They spoke with Jowharabout how that horrible night changed their lives and how they managed to move on.

France suffered its deadliest terrorist attack in November 2015 when three teams of jihadists launched almost simultaneous attacks on the Stade de France national stadium and the Bataclan music hall, as well as restaurants and bars (Le Carillon, La Belle Équipe, La Bonne Bière , Le Petit Cambodge, Le Comptoir Voltaire) in central Paris, killing 130 people and injuring 350. France’s largest criminal trial begins in Paris on Wednesday, with 20 people facing justice for their alleged role in the attacks, the deadliest on French soil since World War II. The trial is expected to last nine months.

Jowharspoke to several Parisians whose lives were turned upside down by the attacks.

• Bart, the manager of La Belle Équipe: ‘It’s not a tomb … It’s a café, a place where people come to have fun’

The terrace of La Belle Équipe in the 11th arrondissement of Paris on September 1, 2021. © France 24

Bart was on duty the night of November 13, 2015, when Islamist terrorists fired on the terrace of La Belle Équipe restaurant. Twenty people died in a matter of seconds, including several of Bart’s colleagues and friends. The 32-year-old, who is now a manager of the restaurant, said people often don’t know that La Belle Équipe suffered the second highest death toll that night, after the Bataclan concert hall. But Bart doesn’t want to talk about what happened anymore.

La Belle Équipe owner Grégory Reibenberg lost his wife Djamila that night. When the historic trial opens on September 8, Bart will join the process as a civil party to the case. “I’ll be there, I’ll do it for them, for Grégory and for La Belle Équipe … But after the trial, that will be it. I’m going to have to live with it for the rest of my life, but from a public point of view no I’ll give more interviews, “Bart told FRANCE 24. He doesn’t expect much from the trial. One of the accused perpetrators, Salah Abdeslam, “is not a talker,” Bart said. “He hasn’t said anything the whole time and I doubt he’s going to say anything during the trial.”

It was difficult for Bart to return to La Belle Équipe after the attack, until the restaurant was renovated. In 2016, Reibenberg renovated the place. The bar counter was moved to another location, the bistro took on a new color, and the landmarks weren’t the same. “La Belle Équipe was reborn from her ashes,” said Bart. As the only member of the old team still in the restaurant, “people are often surprised that I’m still working here after everything I’ve been through. But this restaurant is still a place of life,” he said. Years later, he feels “very attached” to La Belle Équipe.

On the wall, a fresco of poppies discreetly bears the names of all those killed in the attack, Bart noted. But the manager tries not to think about the attack during his daily work. “I created a barrier for myself.”

In fact, he gets annoyed when visitors come to lay flowers. “I understand that it is a way for them to show us their love. But here, we are not in a cemetery, it is not a grave. It is a cafe, a place where people come to have fun. And actually that is why we were. If this becomes a place where people come to pay their respects, the people who did this will have won, “he said.

“Life goes on. We had even more people coming here after the attacks,” Bart said.

Six years later, the manager is training a new generation of waiters. “They are young. I also seek to protect them. I don’t want to be reminded over and over again that an attack occurred here.”

• Jean-Baptiste, history professor in Paris: ‘The trial will contribute to the work of historians’

Jean-Baptiste teaches history at a private secondary school in Paris. © All rights reserved / Jean-Baptiste

A soccer fanatic, Jean-Baptiste would not miss the France-Germany game on November 13, 2015. The history teacher, who teaches at a private high school and university level, was at his home in the 17th arrondissement of Paris (district). watching the game on television that Friday night with his brother-in-law. Six years after that nightmare night, Jean-Baptiste still remembers the events as they happened, tragic minute by minute. “When I saw that the situation was getting out of control on Twitter, I immediately thought of some of my students who were on the esplanade of the Stade de France,” the football stadium in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, where suicide bombers they detonated their charges that night, killing one man and seriously wounding others. And then he discovered, amazed like everyone else, the tragedy unfolding in the Bataclan concert hall. He fell asleep that night at 3 in the morning.

The weekend passed and then came Monday, when Jean-Baptiste would have to try to explain the unfathomable to his high school students. “As a teacher, you find yourself in a schizophrenic situation where you have to confront your own emotions even while reviewing the event in the most objective way possible, contextualizing it.” The task was complex. “The Ministry of Education left us to our fate. The other teachers, many of whom were stunned, also relied heavily on history teachers to explain the events. Terrorism is part of the things we teach. We did the work and put the events in perspective “. But the exercise was exhausting. Jean-Baptiste was also receiving many messages from alumni who also wanted to make sense of what had happened. People were puzzled.

Throughout that period, “we responded to a social need. Maybe too much,” he said. As time passed, the subject filled all of Jean-Baptiste’s thoughts. It became obsessive, oppressive. “I thought about it all the time.” Tragedy struck close to home as well: One of his friends, who attended the Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan that night, was a survivor of the attack. Together with a fellow historian, he decided to tell his friend’s story in a book. “The commemoration of the first anniversary and the launch of the book did me a lot of good. They allowed me to digest the information and move on.”

But on October 16, 2020, another tragedy occurred. A teacher in the suburbs of Paris was beheaded for a lesson he had given on freedom of expression, during which he had shown his high school students cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. “The murder of Samuel Paty brutally brought back memories of the Charlie Hebdo massacres and November 13. That new incident affected me a lot. As a history teacher, you tell yourself that it could have been you.” Was he afraid? “No, but we know that we have to be extremely attentive to the responses we give to high school students about secularism.” Today, the 42-year-old continues to fulfill his mission as a teacher. Increasingly, he is also reflecting on the future of the world, particularly since he became a father in 2018 to a little girl.

Jean-Baptiste now focuses his expectations on the trial that opens on Wednesday in Paris. “Justice must be carried to the end, no matter how long it takes, so that the victims and their loved ones are heard and … can move on. What will come out of this historic trial is also very important because it will contribute to the work of historians and researchers for years to come and will inform the history books. “

• Nicolas, a real estate agent in the 11th arrondissement of Paris (arrondissement): “The guilty will never be able to return all the lives they took”

Nicolas, director of several real estate agencies in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, who previously lived near the Bataclan concert hall. © All rights reserved / Nicolas

He had just celebrated his 33rd birthday in style with his classmates the night before. So on November 13, Nicolas chose to take it easy at home and watch the France-Germany game with his wife, baby and some friends. The realtor had opened several agencies, including one next to the Bataclan, and he lived two blocks from the concert hall. “During the match, I heard an explosion. I remember Evra raising her head at the Stade de France. I know stadiums, having spent a long time hanging around them. I thought to myself that this noise was not normal.” Soon after, the phone rang. The friends were concerned because they knew that Nicolás’s apartment was only 200 meters from the Bataclan, where hundreds of concert goers were being held hostage. “We changed the channel and we were glued to the television for hours. Outside, through the window, we heard shots and grenades when the forces of order entered the Bataclan. Our friends slept in our house.”

“We did not leave the house for three days, or hardly, only the strict minimum and we were careful,” Nicolás recalled. At work, for two weeks, things were completely quiet. “People in the neighborhood were in shock. District 11 had been attacked twice in less than a year. The Charlie Hebdo attack had occurred 300 meters away a few months earlier,” on January 7, 2015.

Nicolás expected the housing market to take a hit, but in the end only one sale was canceled. “The buyers, an English couple, were supposed to sign a promise to buy an apartment for their daughter and they were scared.” But for the most part, he observed, “people didn’t want to stop living.” “I think I had never seen the terraces of the cafes as crowded as they were after the attacks, although I was not warned. The 11 is known as a neighborhood of party people and bons vivants, and the attacks here were aimed at music, parties, artists … It’s as if the people here wanted to show that they were not willing to be intimidated, “he recalled.

Nicolás ended up moving away from the neighborhood a year ago, but he still works nearby and very often stops by the Bataclan. “There is a monument and flowers. I always think of the people who died and the injured. But I don’t expect anything from the trial,” he said. “Unfortunately, the damage is done. The guilty will never be able to return the lives they took. For me, it is not enough. But there is nothing more we can do.”

The monument inscribed with the names of the victims of the Bataclan attack in front of the concert hall attacked by terrorists on November 13, 2015, seen on September 1, 2021. © France 24

This article has been translated from the original in French. To read Part 1, click here.