"Never again": nearly 500 people gathered on Saturday at the Sallaumines stadium (Pas-de-Calais) to pay "a last tribute to Laura", a 16-year-old girl killed on January 30 with a knife while 'she was coming home from high school.
A minute of silence was observed at the start of the rally, before a family friend spoke to the assembled crowd despite the rain.
"You, Laura, you were a young girl with an extraordinary joie de vivre, the happy sister of a family of five children," said her stepfather, Ludovic Hulot. "You remain in our heart forever, we love you".
Calogero's song “One day in the wrong place” then resounded under the covered area of the stadium grandstand, with some people singing the words “Never again”. The rally ended with a release of balloons.
Pain, sadness, and rage
"I am very touched by the presence, the support and the gifts of all these people," said Audrey Bernard, Laura's mother. "Thanks to them, my daughter left worthy of a princess."
“There is still a lot of pain, sadness, especially rage. I don't want it to start again. This is why we are all mobilized ”.
"It is the whole city that comes to support parents in this terrible tragedy," said Christian Pedowski, communist mayor of this town of nearly 10,000 inhabitants, in the Lens area. "Today, we have only one expectation, it is that the culprit (s) will be arrested as soon as possible".
"It can affect everyone"
"We are here to support the family, we are wholeheartedly with them," said Catherine Baert, mother, sharing the "shock" and "sadness" that seized her when she heard the news. "I have two daughters of Laura's age, so we feel concerned."
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"It doesn't have to happen anymore. I am moved, she is a girl that I have probably met in the city. It can affect everyone, it's a little scary, ”said Tarek Bensider, 37, father of three.
The girl was a first student in a vocational high school in Sallaumines. His body had two stab wounds, one in the chest and the other in the throat. The investigation was entrusted to the Lille judicial police.
