On Friday, closing statements in the Paris attacks trial came to an end with pleas from the two lawyers representing Salah Abdeslam, the sole survivor of the terrorist group which caused the deaths of 132 people in the November 2015 massacres, reports RFI.
"Justice has nothing to do with cruelty. It is not intended to please the crowd. If you punish this man as the prosecution demands, terrorism will have won . . . and we'll know that all this has been nothing but a farce."
Olivia Ronen's final words hung in the silence for what seemed a long time before the tribunal president, Jean-Louis Périès, uttered his usual thanks: "Merci Maître".
Ronen and her co-defender, Martin Vettes, spent nearly four hours at the bar on Friday, attempting to save their client, Salah Abdeslam, from literal life imprisonment, the worst punishment permitted under French law.
Their task, in a courtroom packed with surviving victims and those bereaved by the 2015 attacks, was not an easy one. No one likes Salah Abdeslam.
Martin Vettes began the defence by remembering his first impressions of the specially-built courtroom and the extraordinary security precautions put in place for this trial.