The death of Samuel Paty, professor in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) assassinated on Friday October 16 by a young person of Chechen origin, plunged Didier Cornara, 58, back into a nightmare he had already experienced barely there more than five years.
His brother, Hervé Cornara, is the first victim of terrorism to be beheaded on French soil in an Islamist attack.
It was June 26, 2015, in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier (Isère).
Yassin Salhi, 35, delivery driver for Hervé Cornara's transport company, murdered his 54-year-old employer, then hung the head of his victim on a fence, surrounded by two flags of the Chahada, the profession of Islamic faith.
The perpetrator of this barbaric crime then tried to blow up a Seveso-classified company.
Indicted for "assassination in connection with a terrorist company", the man had nevertheless explained that his act was the consequence of a conflict with his boss.
" Which is completely false.
It was indeed a terrorist act ”, gets carried away Didier Cornara, joined this weekend by the Parisian-Today in France.
Investigators had discovered that Yassin Salhi had links with Islamist circles.
He even reportedly sent two photos of his beheaded victim to a jihadist friend in Syria.
He committed suicide in prison on December 22, 2015. By taking away his secrets.
The ministers, "in the end, they did nothing"
Shocked by this new attack, Didier Cornara said he understood what the relatives of the cowardly murdered professor could experience.
And what he and his people endured painfully comes to the surface.
"It is terrible when you are given the body of your deceased in two parts and that you are told that he was beheaded by fanatics, testifies Didier Cornara.
I fought for it to be stitched up, made up, so that my mom wouldn't see the horror.
It is impossible for a family to be at peace in such a situation.
To see that five years after my brother, someone beheading a teacher like that on a sidewalk, awakens a lot of things in me.
I'm sick of it.
"
The victim of the June 2015 attack, Hervé Cornara.
/ DR
Hervé Cornara's brother says that the attack of June 26, 2015 broke his family.
“Hervé's wife and her son Kevin had health problems because of that.
They moved.
We no longer have contact with them.
My brother's business went bankrupt, ”lists Didier, who was living in Asia at the time with his wife.
“I had to come back to France and I lost everything.
And, today, we have forgotten my brother, the first beheaded on French soil, ”he laments before venting his anger.
“After Hervé's death, several ministers came to see us to tell us that what had happened was terrible, that they were not going to let it happen, that we were going to see what we were going to see.
In the end, they did nothing.
Five years later, a professor is beheaded.
And what do I see on TV?
Other ministers who come to say that we are going to make a day of tribute, a rally and a minute of silence… ”
"If it's not a war, what is it then?"
Noting with dismay that history is repeating itself, Didier Cornara asks: "So we are waiting for a third person to be beheaded?"
It's just outrageous.
I also saw the former Minister of the Interior, Bernard Cazeneuve, in post at the time of the assassination of my brother, say about this new beheading: "what a pity".
Does he have anything else to say?
"
Hervé Cornara's brother wonders when "our policies are going to take their hands out of their pockets and kick out these imams, these preachers and all these people who preach and stir up hatred?
"He assumes and clarifies:" When I say that, it's not racism.
We're just at war.
And we have to fight the enemy.
When you behead a professor on a sidewalk, if it's not a war, what is it?
"
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Another episode comes to the surface.
He terribly injured Didier Cornara after the death of his brother.
“While his murderer was in prison, we had to pay him his salary, his paid vacation, his allowances, because he was employed in the company my brother was running.
We were forced to respect labor law.
It's just unbearable.
"