Tuesday December 11, 2018, 7:58 p.m.
The streets around
Christkindelsmarik
, Strasbourg's traditional Christmas market, are packed with people.
Each year, the event welcomes nearly 2 million visitors.
It's time for celebration, family reunions and mulled wine.
It's late.
The chalets that light up the Alsatian town are going out, one after the other.
The market will close soon.
The crowd begins to disperse.
That evening, Mostafa Salhane is at the wheel of his black Mercedes.
The taxi driver takes care of four Italian parliamentarians whom he drops off in the picturesque Petite France district.
The transalpines are preparing to dine in a legendary Strasbourg restaurant, just opposite the canal.
Arriving in front of the famous half-timbered house, Mostafa prints a receipt.
The time and date written in black ink will remain forever engraved in his memory.
“I still have the ticket at home.
I keep it carefully
,” he confides today to Le
Figaro
.
The Italians get out of the taxi, one of them lights a cigarette, says
“keep the change”
.
That's when Mostafa sees him.
Dressed in a black down jacket, he hides behind a van and casts anxious, feverish glances around him.
Then sets his eyes on Mostafa.
Without hesitation, the man in the black down jacket rushes into his Mercedes and sits in the back seat.
- Take me to Neudorf! Quick, hurry up.
Mostafa does so.
He meets the man's gaze in the rearview mirror.
Large drops bead on his forehead.
- Come on, hurry up, my mother is sick!
Neudorf is a peripheral district of the Strasbourg metropolitan area.
A former industrial area mainly known for its
Rivetoile
shopping center .
There is a cinema, too.
It's about ten minutes from the city center.
The man is becoming more and more urgent.
He constantly casts worried glances out the rear window.
Mostafa drives slowly.
Rue Human... Faculty of Medicine...
Mostafa tries as best he can to concentrate on the route.
The nervousness of his passenger disturbs him, worries him.
Something is wrong.
Something is twisting his guts.
The individual blows loudly.
Suddenly, he says to the driver:
- Are you of Arab origin? You speak Arabic ?
Mostafa nods.
And continues in the same language:
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