The trial of 20 people accused of various roles in the November 13th 2015 series of terrorist attacks in Paris, which claimed the lives of 130 people and wounded more than 400 others, opens on September 8th.
The massacres were claimed by the so-called Islamic State group (IS).
Held in a purpose-built courtroom in the Palais de Justice building in the centre of the French capital, it will involve around 1,800 civil parties – mostly family members of those who died and survivors of the attacks – and more than 300 lawyers during hearings expected to last nine months. Six of the accused will be tried in absentia, five of them reportedly killed in the Middle East and another serving a prison sentence in Turkey to where he fled immediately after the Paris attacks.
The terrorists, most of whom had driven to Paris from Belgium, split into various groups that night, and began with a suicide bombing attack at around 9.20pm at the Stade de France sports stadium just north of the capital, during a football match between France and Germany. One bystander was killed. Minutes later, another group began touring the streets of the 10th and 11th arrondissements (districts) of central Paris, shooting at customers on the terraces of cafés and restaurants, killing a total of 39 people. Another suicide bomber blew himself up inside a bistrot.
At around 9.40pm, a group of three gunmen attacked the Bataclan music hall during a concert by US rock group Eagles of Death Metal, where they shot dead a total of 90 people and took hostages. The massacre ended when police stormed the building shortly after midnight, killing the gunmen.
In all, seven terrorists were killed in the attacks. Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the sole surviving member of the group, was later arrested in Belgium and is among the defendants at the trial opening on Wednesday.
Senior Paris public prosecutor François Molins, then in charge of terrorism investigations nationwide, would lead the initial probe into the attacks before an independent judicial investigation was launched. In this interview with Mediapart’s Matthieu Suc, Molins, 68, who in 2018 was appointed public prosecutor for the Cour de Cassation, France’s highest judicial court, recalls his own experiences on the night of November 13th 2015, when he rushed to the unfolding scenes of the attacks. He recounts the events of the aftermath – the lessons learnt from the process of identifying bodies and the distress of victims’ families, his own mistakes and regrets – and reflects on the successes and failures in France’s efforts to counter terrorism.
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MEDIAPART: What were you doing at the moment you received the phone call that announced what had just happened?
François Molins: After an exhausting week, I was on the point of going to bed. I received a call around 9.25pm from Jacques Méric [editor’s note, then the head of local security for Paris and its suburbs] who told me about an explosion at the Stade de France where the France-Germany football match was being played. There was, it at first appeared, one death. With my wife, we put the TV on and we saw the breaking news banners announcing shootings against café terraces, and with that, I told myself ‘That’s it, we’re in it’.
MEDIAPART: Were you expecting it?
F.M.: For some months, the DGSI [the French domestic intelligence agency] had given us very alarmist talk about the evolution of the threat, telling us about the Amniyat [the so-called Islamic State (IS) group’s secret services which planned terrorist attacks outside of the territory it occupied]. So yes, we were made very aware to the fact that it risked happening one day. But of course, we didn’t know when nor how.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
MEDIAPART: What was your first decision that night?
F.M.: I called Camille Hennetier [head of the anti-terrorist branch of the Paris prosecution services]. We activated our crisis unit.
MEDIAPART: Then you decided to go, pretty much alone, to the café terraces.
F.M.: Yes. In the culture of a public prosecutor, you go to the crime scene. So straight away, I called on my security officers for them to drive me there. The first bistrot that I saw was La Bonne Bière. I was the only official [at the scene]. I found myself among the first of those to intervene, the fire brigade, the Samu [emergency medics], and the public security services. A police officer from the 11th arrondissement gave me his bullet-proof vest. I kept it on all through the evening. I don’t know why, but, several times that night, there were fears of snipers positioned on the rooftops.
Then I went to the Carillon. I saw all these bodies folded on the pavement and a woman inside the establishment. I went in to talk to her, to ask her what had happened. You receive the information in immediate time, without distortion. That helps to understand. I was still at the Carillon when I learnt about the hostage-taking that was happening at the Bataclan.
MEDIAPART: You then went to the scene outside the concert hall.
F.M.: Yes and, as I had gone there passing the crime scenes of the [café and restaurant] terraces, when I arrived everyone was already there. There was the police prefect, the Paris mayor, the BRI [for Research and Intervention Brigade, a specialised police unit], the Samu, the fire brigade. Then I learnt that the French president [François Hollande] was going to come. I remember thinking that, in terms of security, that was a blunder. But for as much, I understand very well the concern for a president to show that he’s present. And then, me too, with hindsight, I was taking a risk in going there, in the conditions in which I went. But the boss must give the example.
MEDIAPART: What role did you play when the BRI stormed the Bataclan?
F.M.: At the Bataclan, you have on the one hand people who had committed crimes and on the other a public order disturbance which absolutely had to be ended. Around midnight, I was with Michel Cadot, the police prefect, when Christophe Molmy, the head of the BRI, told us of extremely worrying facts, that if action wasn’t taken rapidly there was a risk of deaths on the upper floor [the remaining two gunmen still alive had taken refuge, with hostages, on the first floor of the Bataclan]. There was no means of discussing with the terrorists. We concerted with Prefect Cadot, and we gave our validation for the urgent assault plan presented to us by the BRI.
MEDIAPART: During the following weeks, rumours were circulating that the terrorists had cut the throats of some of the Bataclan victims.
F.M.: That is totally false, because we went about establishing the truth with the forensic science institute. There were no blade wounds at the Bataclan. However, there may have been projections that soiled the faces of the deceased, which might explain the origins of this unfounded rumour.
MEDIAPART: Once the terrorists inside the Bataclan were neutralised, what was your next role?
F.M.: The Paris public prosecution services must decide where to send the bodies of the deceased. We chose to turn to the single forensic medicine institute [the IML] in Paris, in a move to simplify things. It was already complicated enough for the families to find their own among the different hospitals that received the wounded.
MEDIAPART: Was that sufficient enough to cope with the situation?
F.M.: Faced with the number of deaths, we had to make the choice of discriminating. For certain bodies, post mortem examinations were carried out, for the others not. Those which were autopsied were the cadavers of the terrorists, the non-identified bodies and those whose death occurred in hospital – to determine whether or not [the hospital] was responsible. And then there were the bodies on which the bullet entrance wound was visible, but not the exit wound. That necessitated complimentary examinations.
All the bodies had to be submitted to medical imaging examination, to determine who should be autopsied or not. The IML, which was equipped with a scanner didn’t have it available because of building work going on. The bodies had to be taken for scanning at a Paris hospital and then brought to the IML.
MEDIAPART: That slowed down the forensic examination operations.
F.M.: On the Monday, I saw that the rhythm of the post mortem examinations was not at all satisfactory. Our aim was to return the bodies as quickly as possible to the families in order to simplify their [future] procedures. We put pressure on the professor representing the IML, explaining to him that all the post mortems had to be completed by the following Friday, otherwise we would engage another [medical forensic science] institute. That must have been persuasive: they finished in the given time.
MEDIAPART: Was the process employed to help the victims’ families up to the task?
F.M.: No, looking after them should have been much better organised. I imagine that this will be shown at the trial. The Saturday November 14th, and the Sunday November 15th, were horrible. You had two phone hotlines for the victims’ relatives. It’s always the dual team of the interior [ministry] and the police prefecture [administration]. People didn’t know where they were going, looking for bodies over the whole day.
Fortunately, the prime minister’s justice adviser would get the École militaire [military school in central Paris] opened on the Saturday afternoon to receive all the victims’ families. While waiting for the police to arrive, it was the magistrates from the Paris prosecution services who announced the deaths to the families. We had to lead the way in dealing with the initial difficulties. I was involved also. On two occasions, I had to confirm to parents the deaths of their children. We’re not prepared for that. I remember one couple; their two daughters died on November 13th. It is appalling, how can you announce that to them?
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MEDIAPART: Does this obstacle course that was imposed on the victims’ relatives remain for you the worst aspect of the mismanagement of the crisis of the terrorist attack?
F.M.: Yes, together with the procedure for identifying the corpses. That was less apparent, but we identified a few problems there too. Each [deceased] victim was given a bracelet together with a SINUS identity number [for ‘standardised digital information system’, using a bar code], containing personal and medical data. We came to realise that these bracelets did not indicate the places where they had been picked up. When there is a multi-site attack, it is, all the same, important to know if the victim was found at the Carillon or at La Bonne Bière. Furthermore, some of the bracelets became illegible because of blood stains. Finally, there were two identity inversions. That was corrected and during the next mass [killings] attack, that of Nice [in July 2016], the procedure for dealing with the victims was more efficient.
MEDIAPART: For you personally, when did the night of November 13th end?
F.M.: At around 5am I went home to sleep. Well, ‘sleep’ is the wrong word. I lay down. After having seen horrors like that night, you don’t sleep.
MEDIAPART: What did you think of then?
F.M.: Ideas bump against each other. One is already projecting one’s professional duties. You see all the problems arriving. And then also, the attack has not ended. We knew, according to the first eye-witness accounts that were given, that there were two members of the squad that attacked the terraces still at large [Abdelhamid Abaaoud, mastermind of the massacres, and an accomplice].
MEDIAPART: As of what moment did you identify the profiles of the terrorists?
F.M.: During the night of November 13th, we hadn’t yet discovered the identities. At 4.12am, we learnt that the [Volkswagen] Polo that the terrorists had abandoned in front of the Bataclan had been rented in Belgium. Immediately, the first requests for judicial cooperation were sent to Brussels. At 11.30am, the Belgian federal prosecution services indicated to us that those who rented the Polo were French.
At 1.50pm, the DGSI provided the identity of Salah Abdeslam. At the same time, we learnt that four hours earlier he had been the object of a road check at [the northern French town of] Cambrai by the gendarmerie, who didn’t know who they were dealing with. Things move very fast.
MEDIAPART: During the investigation, a witness recounted that a cousin of Abdelhamid Abaaoud was staying at her home. That information made it possible to find and neutralise the terrorist as he was preparing a new attack. The witness appears in the case file under her true name and had to be placed in witness protection status. Were there not other ways of detailing the information she gave without revealing her name?
F.M.: There was nothing like that which existed for such witnesses, and it is for that reason that she was taken into custody, almost at our request. Taking her into custody, which had caused shock at the time, was also the means with which to take care of her and provide protection.
On the Monday, when we learnt the content of her account, it was too good to be true. Who could imagine Abdelhamid Abaaoud going to ground in a bush in [the northern Paris suburb of] Aubervilliers [where Abaaoud had been hiding in the bushes of a warehouse zone]? It was not very believable. It was only with the judicial investigation that we would be able to determine that Abaaoud’s cousin was in contact with Belgians, that she was looking for lodgings. So, honestly, in hindsight, I think we did the right thing.
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Background note to the interview, which follows again immediately below: Overnight on November 18th-19th, five days after the Paris attacks against the Bataclan and café terraces, the police intervention unit, the RAID, which is specialised in dealing with particularly dangerous situations like terrorist attacks, hostage-taking and armed robbery, stormed a building in the north Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. Abdelhamid Abaaoud had been observed on the evening of November 18th entering the building, where he was in the company of two other terrorist accomplices. The RAID operation lasted several hours during the early morning of November 19th, and the firefight ended in the deaths of the three terrorists, reportedly after one of them triggered a suicide bomb, along with Abaaoud’s female cousin. Prosecutor François Molins gave a press conference to detail the events on November 20th.
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MEDIAPART: During your press conference, you spoke of “very sustained and almost uninterrupted gunfire” against the police, whereas the reality was very different, as Mediapart revealed in January 2016. The police forensic service experts determined that 11 bullets were fired by the terrorists, compared to around 1,500 fired by the RAID officers. Why?
F.M.: I gave the information that I was given. Voilà.
MEDIAPART: Was it the first time that you had provided information that was found to be false?
F.M.: Absolutely. It strongly grieved me, as one might say.
MEDIAPART: How do you explain this muddle?
F.M.: I haven’t an explanation. I took the trouble of checking twice with the RAID hierarchy before the press conference, asking if the given figures properly corresponded with the reality. Each time I was told that they did.
MEDIAPART: As Mediapart also revealed, most of the shots against the RAID officers were fired by its own men. Should this operation be considered to be a failure?
F.M.: I don’t at all accuse the police services, who did their job well. One must put oneself in the context. What weapons the terrorists disposed of was unknown at that very moment. We knew that they had a project to commit an attack at [the business district west of Paris] La Défense. And, as the night of November 13th confirmed to us, those terrorists have no hesitation in detonating their explosive vests. Moreover, we were very afraid that the account given by Sonia [the pseudonym given to the witness whose account led to finding Abaaoud] was a manipulation, a means of leading the forces of law and order into a trap. So I very well understand the strategy of the RAID which chose to engage with a saturation of gunfire.
MEDIAPART: Your press conferences were keenly awaited in France after each new deadly terrorist attack. What were your objectives with this ritualised media exercise?
F.M.: Firstly, I did so because the law gives the public prosecution services the monopoly on communication. It is for us to do it, not politicians. Then, we do so because we try to respect certain ethics. To respect the presumption of innocence. To respect the dignity of the victims. We won’t allow ourselves to say just anything and everything about the condition of the bodies, about the crime scenes. And finally, to respect as much as possible the confidentiality of the investigations.
MEDIAPART: You have been nicknamed by some as “the voice” on terrorist attacks, and described as having a cathartic role with your appearances. How do you react to that?
F.M.: The degree of fear and anxiety prompted by events of this nature is considerable. The communication from the prosecution services could have contributed to containing these fears. Because by objectivizing the events, by putting words to the drama and by explaining what one is doing, people have been effectively able, at a given time, to hang on to that. And, subsequently, we integrated that dimension in constructing our communications strategy.
MEDIAPART: This was to become systematic. You have held more than 50 press conferences concerning terrorist activity.
F.M.: Yes. My colleagues would not have naturally chosen to communicate after each attack, it’s me who had wanted to do so. Because if not, I was worried that it would lead to questioning, perhaps conspiracy theories. Some could have ended up commenting, ‘But why are we told nothing? It’s hiding something’.
MEDIAPART: During those years, you didn’t hesitate to leap up to correct aspect of the political debate. What was it that made you think you had a right to do so?
F.M.: I even one day corrected an interior minister! During a press conference, I underlined that the public prosecutor has the monopoly of communicating about investigations. With Bernard Cazeneuve [interior minister from April 2014 to December 2016] I had no problem. We were in perfect agreement about the distribution of roles, which corresponded with the separation of responsibilities between the administrative and the judicial [spheres]. It is normal that a minister of the interior communicates about what he has done to ensure the security of the French people. That doesn’t shock me at all. But to speak about elements from the investigation, that’s a no.
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MEDIAPART: How do you view the growth over recent years of legislation concerning intelligence powers and the fight against terrorism? Do you believe that there have been too many new measures or not enough?
F.M.: I would turn the question around. I would rather say fortunately we have the law of July 2015 [defining the framework in which French intelligence services are authorised to use certain techniques to access information] because beyond that, the rest is just tidying up. That law remains a founding act for the work of the anti-terrorism services. It might shock you, but to my thinking, it’s progress in terms of freedoms. Written into law are the techniques for intelligence which before were carried out under cover, in more questionable conditions.
MEDIAPART: Some held for terrorist activity in France have asked to be able to negotiate their prison sentences in return for providing information. Are you in favour of extending so-called “repentant status” to those involved in terrorist offences?
F.M.: With hindsight, if I have one regret, it is that we have not made sufficient progress on this issue, because we know that it is a central element in the fight against terrorism. That’s certain. Moreover, I find that there is a lot of political nervousness over this subject. We could go much further using a true ‘repentant status’.
MEDIAPART: What is your view of the controversies that erupt – with perhaps more intensity over recent months – after each terrorist attack when, paradoxically, they are isolated acts and not mass killings?
F.M.: Precisely. This reflects the difficulties in detecting these terrorists, whereas the problem, ultimately, is less grave because there is not the same toll of victims. But it is much more difficult to deal with because one is in a sort of grey zone in which the least failing can result in a murderous attack. It is more complicated to perceive. And, with the encouragement of the electoral agenda, some politicians are involved in a spiral to outdo each other, stopping at nothing in the competition. Each one chips in with their idea, [like] ‘If there were automatic sentences, there would never have been an acquittal’. It takes quite something to say that. What strikes me in all that is that the heart of the problem is still not dealt with. For example, how does one explain this drift towards jihadism?
MEDIAPART: What are you referring to?
F.M.: All the problems of integration, of social mobility. You sense very well that it’s not politically correct to say that. Straight away, one is accused, ‘With talk like that, it’s always the fault of society’. I don’t say that it’s the fault of society, but there are certainly causes more profound, by which we don’t know how to treat these young people who turn towards jihad.
MEDIAPART: With the distance from the events that you now necessarily have, what are you expecting from the trial of those accused of involvement in the November 13th 2015 attacks?
F.M.: Firstly, I don’t think it will be like the trial [held in 2020] of the January 2015 attacks. We were never able to identify the accomplices of the Kouachi brothers. Here, on the contrary, in the dock will be major actors of the terrorist network. V13 [the code given to the case file] is a truly tentacular dossier in which, to my point of view, the magistrates’ investigations have allowed answers to be given to all the questions that one asked oneself.
MEDIAPART: Have the events of November 13th 2016 changed the magistrate, or the man, that you were?
F.M.: You have a thicker skin, that’s for sure. You live through unimaginable events, it’s not always easy.
MEDIAPART: Have you suffered from post-traumatic disorders?
F.M.: No, I didn’t have any. Only bad dreams. The vision of the crime scenes will never leave my head. After that, I take measure of the comfort zone in which I am. I did not suffer in my flesh, I did not lose people close to me. So I try not to talk too much about that, because there are people much more unfortunate than me in this story.
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- The above is an abridged translation of the original interview conducted in French, which can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse