In the early hours of November 18th, 2015 officers from the French police's elite antiterrorism unit RAID staged an assault on a flat at Saint-Denis, just north of Paris. The operation led to the death of two terrorists who had carried out the attacks in Paris on November 13th. Mediapart has discovered that though the police claim they came under “sustained” fire during the assault, in fact the terrorists in the flat only fired eleven rounds, against more than 1,500 from police officers. Most of the shots sustained by the police came from their own officers. Matthieu Suc reports.
Before he is able to venture inside what the authorities describe as the terrorists' “plot flat”, police section leader Philippe M. has to wait a good two hours. It takes that long for workmen to carry out the required shoring-up work to ensure the whole building doesn't collapse.
