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The terrorist attacks in Paris: almost six years later, a tour of the bars attacked by jihadists

2021-09-08T21:24:02.904Z


On November 13, 2015, a commando group attacked several parts of the city. There were 130 dead, including terrorists.


Maria Laura Avignolo

09/08/2021 18:01

  • Clarín.com

  • World

Updated 09/08/2021 18:01

At Le Petit Cambodge, the delicious little Parisian restaurant in the XI district, exactly opposite St Louis Hospital, the

terrace was packed on Wednesday lunchtime

.

Under the yellow canvas roof, on the round tables with colorful chairs, people ate, laughed, enjoyed the prawn curry, the spring rolls and the Bobuns, on a hot and sunny day.

Everything would have seemed normal

if two policemen in bulletproof vests

, Fama rifles and a police patrol car on the same corner, loaded with more troops,

had not been patrolling the restaurants

.

A kind of amnesia invaded the customers and a deep silence to the waiters and cooks.

Some did not remember that the most historic judicial process against Islamic terrorism was beginning today after the Second World War in France.

The others preferred not to remember

and were not witnesses of what happened.

There on November 13, 2015, Brahim Abdeslam, Chabick Akbrouk and Abdelhamid Abbaoud,

all jihadists of the Self-proclaimed Islamic State

, got out of a black Seat León car, registered in Belgium.

Le Petit Cobodge, one of the bars attacked on November 13, 2015. Photo: Noel Smart.

With their Kalashnikovs in hand, they fired three times on the terrace, shouting Allahu Akbar and "This is for Syria."

Thirteen innocents fell

, enjoying an unusually warm November night, in this favorite restaurant of the Parisian Bobos (bohemian bourgeois).

A massacre that began in the Stade de Frande, where President Francois Hollande was,

continued in six Parisian restaurants and cafes in the X and XI districts

, and ended in the Bataclán, a symbolic place of concerts and parties in Paris,

where in half an hour there were 90 dead

and hundreds wounded.

Historical judgment

In the Old Palace of Justice, in a new room, in a specially integrated criminal court and under an unprecedented organization, the trial against this series of crimes began at noon, at the same time as those who were having lunch at Le Petit Cambodge. Islamist terrorists,

with 1,800 civil parties, more than 300 lawyers

and 141 accredited media from all over the world.

A historic process of a jihadist tour,

which left 130 dead

, including seven of the assailants, 354 hospitalized and hundreds of traumatized.

The country is under "maximum alert", fearing that the trial will increase the chances of another terrorist attack, when the country has lived on "Attack Alert" ever since.

Only one terrorist survived: Salah Abdeslam,

French, detained in Belgium, after it was not detonated at the Stade de France.

He was picked up by friends in Paris and transferred back to Brussels after the terrorist attack, where he escaped for four months, in the ghetto that saw him grow up.

The plaque of the emblematic Bataclan of Paris.

Photo: Noel Smart.

At the trial, he identified himself as an "ISIS fighter" and did not want to give the name of his father and mother, when asked by the judge.

They are the only words that have been known to him since he was arrested, after having vindicated

"Ala as the only divinity" and "Mohammed as a messenger" in

front of the judge.

Then he came out of his silence to start shouting about his conditions of detention and

saying that they are treated "like dogs"

and that on the day of resurrection "they will be held accountable."

"This is not an ecclesiastical court," replied the judge.

The corner of the massacre

Rue Albertine and Rue Bichat.

A Parisian corner where you can find Le Petiit Cambodge, the Carillon bar,

where 12 other

patrons

died

and the Maria Luisa bar, who was miraculously saved from the massacre.

The jihadists fired from the street on the terraces, as if they were on a hunt.

“We work alongside.

We came here for lunch.

I did not realize that coming here coincided with the day of the trial. 

But after the attacks, I was terrified of traveling on public transport.

I was terrified.

He works then in Neuilly sur Seine and I would get off if I saw a suspicious figure.

I was afraid for my children.

He avoided the Metro.

And slowly you forget, you regain freedom, ”said Celine, who was having lunch at La Petit Cambodge with her co-workers.

Attacks in Paris and the memory of the victims.

Photo: Noel Smart.

The restaurant

reopened four months after

the terrorist attack.

The staff wanted it that way, after paying tribute to their thirteen dead.

On a black tiled wall, a series of white mosaics recalls them, it is the symbol of memory for those who work and the restaurant's regulars, without being too oppressive.

Opposite the bar Le Carillon remains intact.

It was another objective.

They liquidated their customers, who were sitting on the terrace.

His tin bar was shot

, as were the bricks in the walls, which were removed in the restoration but the same climate remains.

Faredji, Kabylia's home manager, is alone to tend an entire terrace.

The regulars are on the sidewalk.

They don't want to remember that day

.

For them there are too many absences.

Those who are missing were at the same tables, in a neighborhood cafe, as those who are today and opt for silence and privacy.

But no one has left Le Carillon: to go, have a coffee, sit on the terrace, leave no privacy for fear, watch the super-armed patrols is a military against religious fanaticism. An act as simple as it is brave, when the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin said in the morning that

"the terrorist threat is particularly high."

El Bataclán, where 90 people died.

Photo: Noel Smart.

“Nobody who worked here has been left.

They all left

, traumatized by what they experienced.

A regular gentleman always sat in the back, against the window, to the left.

As there was a lot of noise, he decided to change places, next to the terrace.

Five minutes later he had died ”, Faredji said, clarifying that he is not an Arab.

“The Arabs are in Saudi Arabia.

I am Kabile, from Algeria ”, he confirms.

A lucky man

In that macabre corner, the bar and restaurant Maria Louisa

was saved on that night of terror.

No one fired on his terrace, covered in habitues.

His staff from then are not on the premises today.

But there is Rafael Fernández, a French musician, bassist for the band Monsters d'Atan and a young man, as a good artist.

“I can say that I was saved twice in these attacks.

My friend, the singer of my band, invited me to the Bataclán that night because there was a promotion.

It only cost 25 euros to enter, "he recalls.

"But he had to work in Strasbourg and so did I. We

canceled the project. I used to work at La Belle Biérre, another of the attacked restaurants, and the owner moved me to another of his restaurants. I am a lucky man", he admits and refuses to be photographed.

Mohammed is a waiter at Maria Luisa.

I arrived after the attacks, only two years ago.

What happened is horrible

but I was not here when it happened.

Life goes on ”acknowledged Mohamed.

The Bataclán, a symbol

It was 9:40 p.m. on November 13, 2015 when the third commando group

arrived at the Bataclán theater

, a mythical place in eastern Paris.

That 1864 building, whose name is reminiscent of an operetta by Jacques Offenbach, was the temple of Parisian rock and roll.

That night the American heavy metal band Eagles of Death Metal was playing and it was packed.

More than 1,500 people came to listen to them.

Foued Mohammed Aggad, Ismael Mostefai and Samy Amimour, a former postman, three ISIS jihadists, all French, arrived there

to assassinate 90 people in half an hour

, one by one.

Souvenir of the victims.

Photo Noel Smart.

They were wearing explosive belts, which exploded when the police finally entered the scene, starting at 10:15 p.m.

An assault that ended at 1:18 in the morning, with the three terrorists killed and almost a hundred victims, after taking the public as human shields.

A real massacre.

Today the Bataclán

has recovered its original colors - 

colored, green, white, yellow - and continues with its concerts.

On the ground floor is the Bataclán café, which reopened two months ago after the pandemic.

An optimistic act,

in a place loaded with a joyous history of Paris, which ended in a brutal tragedy.

On its sidewalk, some iron circles honor their dead: "Bataclán, November 13, 2015" is read.

Next to it, a plaque commemorates the 90 who died and the hundreds of wounded.

Under the 30 degrees of a late summer in Paris, an old clown, with his red nose and a bonnet, crosses the sidewalk of the cafe.

"I don't know where we're going but we're going somewhere," he 

repeats, hopefully.

The owners of the Café del Bataclán

want to separate themselves from the tragedy

, when on their terrace there are only journalists looking to interview them on an emblematic day.

“We arrived two months ago.

This must be a place of life, a great space, a great restaurant, respecting memory ”, says his manager, after insisting that his space is separate from the other Bataclán, that of the dead, in the same building.

Inside,

the architecture of the 1800 intact, as in the original Bataclán.

In the square opposite, between drug users and migrants, a young woman cries in front of the plaque where the names of the 90 dead are lined up.

Ask for privacy, distance.

His face is bathed in tears.

The names of the victims are read on the stone: Stephane Albertini, Juan Alberto González Garrido, Fabrice Dubois, Nathalie Boulguina, Marie Mosser and the list goes on.

There are flowers, photos and an olive tree that grows in his honor.

Martyr street

The very Parisian rue de Charonne, in the La Bastille district

, was the other martyr street.

The terrorists attacked the cafe and restaurant La Belle Ëquipe, around 92, where they committed another horrendous massacre.

But they reopened, with the name of the victims on the wall and a spirit of combat, of resurrection and with memory.

Others like Comptoir Voltaire were killed by the attack

.

The new restaurant is called Les Ogres and it specializes in meat.

"You have to keep it alive," says Ramon Rajaonson, its manager.

Advance without forgetting the horror, where Brahium Abdeslam, brother of the terrorist who survived and is being tried, was detonated.

And he left two seriously injured.

La Casa Nostra restaurant, machine-gunned by terrorists, is another tragic story.

It does not exist anymore

.

Its Algerian owner sold the video from his security cameras to the British tabloid The Daily Mail.

You can see in him the tragedy, the detonations, the terrified people hiding.

The clients sued him.

He fell into ruin.

Today he lives in Algeria, in his parents' house, penniless.

Attacks in Paris, an emblematic corner.

Noel Smart.

The owner of the premises has painted it and waits, pandemic on average, a new tenant.

The surviving customers return to the cafes, as a ritual

.

As if it were a therapy, a cure for pain and the tremendous images with which they will have to live all their lives.

The judicial process will last nine months, many of them will testify.

It will be time to do justice. But they must evoke those terrible, terrifying moments, and above all, painful.

Six of the accused will be tried in absentia, and five are believed to have likely died in Syria.

But there is evidence: most of those involved in that massacre were French or Belgians, children of immigration, who will force France and Belgium to wonder

why they are radicalizing,

until they kill their own compatriots.

PB

Look also

Trial in France for the attacks in Paris: "I am a fighter of the Islamic State", says the main defendant

Shouts at the trial in France for the Paris attacks: "They treat us like dogs!" A terrorist complained

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-09-08

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