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Justice building in Paris on September 2nd
Photo: THOMAS COEX / AFP
Drones over the futuristic glass building are banned and safety regulations have been tightened.
The historical trial of the attacks on the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo" in 2015 began not in the old Justice Palace in the center of Paris, but in the new justice building on the northern outskirts.
An entire floor was reserved due to Corona, only every second seat in the courtroom is occupied.
Lawyers, plaintiffs and journalists are housed in separate rooms.
The negotiation is broadcast on screens.
At the beginning of the process, the 200 civil plaintiffs and experts were called.
A judgment is expected to be made on November 10th.
It is a gigantic effort.
In addition to the 200 joint plaintiffs, 144 witnesses are to be heard, 94 lawyers and 90 journalists are among them.
14 men and women are accused of helping with the preparation.
Three of them have not yet been caught and may already be dead. The three main perpetrators were shot by security forces.
The French media are therefore talking about a "second tier" process.
Nevertheless, the expectations are high.
The smell of blood and gunpowder
The Islamist terrorist attack against "Charlie Hebdo" shook France and the whole world.
In court, however, it is not just about this attack, but about a series of attacks lasting several days in which a total of 17 people were murdered in January 2015.
Twelve people died at "Charlie Hebdo" on January 7, 2015, including the illustrator Stéphane Charbonnier.
The perpetrators, the brothers Chérif and Said Kouachi, were shot while trying to escape.
The Islamist Amedy Coulibaly killed a policewoman and four hostages in the kosher supermarket Hyper Cacher in the east of the capital in the days after the attack on "Charlie Hebdo".
He was killed by police bullets when special forces stormed the building.
"I will never forget it," said François Molin, then a public prosecutor and one of the first on site at "Charlie Hebdo", he remembers a "smell of gunpowder and blood".
The process is a "lesson for history".
Marie-Laure Barré and Nathalie Senyk, lawyers for the victims of "Charlie Hebdo", said: "The relatives expect that justice will be done".
Even if the real perpetrators can no longer be held responsible.
The attacks caused a worldwide sensation.
The solidarity slogan "Je suis Charlie", I am Charlie, went around the world.
After the attacks, millions of people demonstrated across France.
Paris held a funeral march with heads of state and government, led by then President François Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Right to blasphemy
At the start of the process, "Charlie Hebdo" put the Mohammed caricatures published earlier on the title of the new edition.
They gave the Islamists the reason for the attacks.
The hatred is "still there," said Laurent Sourisseau, the magazine's director.
But you won't let yourself get down.
The trial of "Charlie Hebdo" was planned for May, but was postponed due to Corona.
The terrorist threat remains high in the country, but a lot has happened since then.
France witnessed the protests of the yellow vests, weeks of strikes against a planned pension reform.
There is hardly any talk anymore about the attacks, which could change again through the mammoth process.
More than 250 people have been killed in Islamist acts of terrorism in France since 2015.
The attacks on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris in autumn 2015 will be followed by a further trial.
President Emmanuel Macron defended the "right to blasphemy" at the start of the trial.
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