Since the evening of November 13, 2015, Guillaume Delmas, survivor of the Bataclan, had to live with the unfathomable trauma of having witnessed a war scene in the heart of Paris. A wound suddenly reopened on June 6, 2018, when this audiovisual producer found himself in the middle of a simulated attack, at his workplace.
Guillaume Delmas, 49, has decided to sue before the industrial tribunal of Paris Publicis - owner of WAM, the company which employs him - in order to request a termination of his employment contract. He says he hopes this hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, will "take a heavy burden off him" and believes that his employer did not ensure his safety that day.
"He was carrying a weapon, a machine gun or a Kalashnikov"
When the forty-something woman goes back to her memories of that spring day, a year and a half ago, her story is chopped up. “I was reaching my office via a corridor when I found myself facing a man in paramilitary uniform. He was carrying a weapon, a machine gun or a Kalashnikov, I don't really know, ”recounts Guillaume Delmas.
"The confrontation lasted two seconds," he continues. All the Bataclan images came back to my mind in a fraction of a second. I thought it would start all over again… and I took my legs to my neck ”. The days following the organization of this exercise, the producer does not realize the weight that this meeting with a false terrorist, as chilling as furtive, will weigh on his existence.
“In fact, my reaction was done in two stages, analyzes today Guillaume Delmas. There was first this leak and then four weeks later, I felt the need to see my shrink with whom I had episodic meetings since the Bataclan ". These four weeks, "this is the time it took for the monster to invade me," he slips. From then on, the symptoms of torpor accumulate. He describes "nightmares", "feelings of discomfort", "the mornings spent on the edge of the bed watching his pumps without being able to move", but also "suicidal thoughts".
Depression and post-traumatic stress
Guillaume Delmas was diagnosed with depression, which he said was embellished with “all the elements of post-traumatic stress”. He is stopped by a doctor and will never set foot again. In May 2019, the CPAM also reclassified his work stoppage as a work accident, underlines his lawyer Me Stéphanie Lamy, who also argues that a recent medical expertise of his client clearly distinguishes the stigmata of November 13, 2015 from those of June 2018.
For Guillaume Delmas, this exercise affected his reconstruction process. “At that time, I was doing quite well. My two crutches were my family and my work. And then I went from a momentary state of sadness to a situation where I was reaching the bottom, "says the Parisian. He is sorry: “While I was taking my time to put balm on my wound, to sew it up, this event blew up the stitches. "
A "total rejection" of his job
After four months of sick leave, in the fall of 2018, Guillaume Delmas asked to meet his employer. He says he had a click: "When I accepted the fact that the healing was going to be long, I completely rejected my work. I cannot imagine being able to return to work in this place one day and I would not like Publicis to become a psychological burden. "
Accompanied by his lawyer, he asked during this meeting that his employment contract be terminated. Publicis refuses, as the chained Duck revealed in November. It will therefore be a summons before the industrial tribunal, decides the almost fiftieth who says he was struck by the "lack of humanity of his employer".
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“I was accused of taking advantage of this case to resolve problems within the company. It added pain and anger to my isolation, ”he breathes. Contacted by Le Parisien, the company Publicis indicated that it did not wish to comment on this case on the eve of the trial.
Several victims at Publicis
The employee's lawyer recalls that a false hostage taking organized without the employees' agreement, in 2005, during a seminar between executives of France Television, had led to several sick leaves and to the conviction five years later its instigator, the director general of the management, by the Court of Cassation, for "complicity in aggravated violence, with premeditation and use or threat of a weapon ...".
Me Lamy also assures that if he wished, Guillaume Delmas could also have continued his business before a criminal court, at least for "endangering the life of others". But the latter "did not want this kind of trial," she insists, "he only wants his employer to apologize."
Guillaume Delmas says today that he does not understand why this day in June 2018, he was not simply informed by his employer of the holding of such an exercise. “At Publicis we are three survivors of November 13 and two of their employees died, including a very close friend who almost died in my arms that evening. They know how traumatic this subject is… ”, he protested.
"I will not be cured with the trial"
On the eve of this awaited trial, the father says he feels better in his psychological state. “I am still experiencing an emotional lift, but I am going lower and lower. My anger against Publicis left me. I nevertheless keep the feeling of a deep human injustice ”. He hopes that Tuesday's hearing can be used to "recognize that Publicis made a mistake" by terminating his employment contract.
Is he thinking of returning to a professional activity? “There is a financial reality and this is a question that I do not avoid, conceives Guillaume Delmas. But when or how? I can't answer it yet. I do not know yet when I will be able to bounce back, I will not be cured with the trial of tomorrow. "
