He refuses the term hero, hardly claims the status of miracle.
“It was hatred that drove me.
For a few minutes I went mad, and that's what saved me, ”he says most simply.
Head of the cleanliness service of Montrouge (Hauts-de-Seine) in 2015, Laurent, 46, delivered this Friday the story of a "surreal" moment, in his own words: this morning when Amedy Coulibaly shot before his eyes policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 26, before Laurent embarks on a desperate clinch with the terrorist.
Fourteen people have been tried since September 2 by the Special Assize Court for their logistical support to the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly, perpetrators of the January 2015 attacks.
This January 8, it is 7:30 am when Laurent and his colleague Eric are called to clean the roadway after a banal traffic accident.
There they meet the municipal police officers Clarissa Jean-Philippe and his teammate Jonathan.
“I had never met her, I found her very nice, smiling.
That day, Clarissa was full of joy: she had just been established, ”recalls Laurent.
Very quickly, the discussion slips over the bloody attack on Charlie Hebdo, committed the day before.
Laurent has not slept all night.
However, when he notices a man in black - Coulibaly - pull out a weapon of war and shoot, it is first of all disbelief that wins out.
"Are you stupid or what, with what happened yesterday, making jokes like that!"
»He asks her, before turning his head: Clarissa lies inert, mortally wounded in the carotid artery.
Eric, his colleague, is disfigured.
It is 8:04 a.m.
VIDEO. January 2015 attacks: from Charlie to Hyper Cacher, 3 days that marked France
Coulibaly, at this precise moment, is only a few inches away.
“My last thought was,
if I turn around, he's going to shoot me.
So I have to get into him.
»A violent fight ensued between the two men for several meters, against a fence, a car hood.
In the fight to disarm him, Laurent seems to manage - he no longer remembers - to tear off the jihadist's hood, which will allow him to be identified thanks to his DNA.
But the cleaner stumbles and finds himself on his knees, at the feet of an athletic and overarmed Coulibaly.
"With all his might," he clings to the barrel of the Kalashnikov.
“I said to myself:
if you
let
go, you're dead.
"
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In a calm, precise tone, the cleaner continues his mind-blowing story.
“He couldn't get rid of me.
He said to me:
do you want to play?
You will die.
Coulibaly takes an automatic pistol from his other pocket, hits it with the butt, and points the gun in his direction.
Laurent is agitated in all directions.
"I saw the barrel of the pistol pass in front of my face," he said, mimicking a wiper movement.
At the end of his rope, knowing he was defeated, he stares at the jihadist and his "wax face".
"I expected him to finish me."
But against all expectations, Coulibaly turned around and set off again.
His weapon would have actually jammed.
" I was lucky.
"
"I ran with my tonfa, that's all I had"
Jonathan, Clarissa's colleague, then sets off in pursuit of the terrorist.
“I ran 300m with my tonfa, that's all I had on the belt.
We were naked that day, ”regrets the man, in uniform at the bar.
Thinking that she had been able to hide, he then discovers his colleague "his" Clarissa, lying in his blood.
"I told him:
it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay
," he says, sobs in his voice.
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After the baccalaureate, Clarissa Jean-Philippe had chosen to leave Martinique to fulfill her vocation - to become a police officer - and to help her mother, with whom she was fused.
"She told me
mom, I'll give you everything you could not have
", tells the bar Marie-Louisa Jean-Philippe, very moved.
Suffering from "two cancers" following the loss of her daughter, she still expresses her pride at having seen her obtain her diploma as a municipal police officer.
“She was supposed to take the national police exam in 2015, but her life was taken before her.
She will always be there, she said, touching her heart.
With her little brother, it was all my life, ”says the one who has not drunk a drop of coffee since the day she was called to tell him the tragedy.
The cup she was holding fell from her hands, she herself passed out.
The Jewish school, Coulibaly's real target?
Did Clarissa Jean-Philippe's death prevent carnage in the Jewish school which was 200 m away?
The hypothesis, considered by the investigators, but that nothing can formally establish, is "obvious" for Laurent.
He himself "sank psychologically" after the attacks of November 13, but clings to this idea that he has perhaps, at his level, helped to avoid worse.
“School is the only target in the neighborhood.
Everything matches: the schedule, the direction in which he was going, what he did the next day
(Editor's note: the attack on the Hyper Cacher)
”.
According to him, the terrorist could in no way predict the accident, and therefore the presence of the police.
"Coulibaly, it's not Madame Soleil," he blurted out in a frank manner that drew laughter from the audience several times.
He who now spends his free time to learn about the attacks - "I can not get out" - is convinced: "We do not come with such logistics to rob a bakery or steal a spare tire at Midas ".
A conviction shared at the Jewish school in Montrouge, where a photo of Clarissa Jean-Philippe was hung to pay tribute to her.