Two and a half hours of tête-à-tête with terror: at the November 13 trial, the story of the hostages of the Bataclan – archyde

Three shadows stand out in the night. Three bodies suspended in the void, hanging from window sills above the chaos. Six or seven meters below, on the road, dozens of spectators flee in clusters the hell of Bataclan, amid shouts and gunshots, through the emergency exits that overlook the Saint-Pierre-Amelot passage.

This scene, filmed from his window by a local resident, the former journalist of World Daniel Psenny, was broadcast on Tuesday, October 19, at the trial of the November 13 attacks. She seized the terror of those who managed to escape the pit in the first minutes of the massacre and the despair of those who found themselves trapped upstairs.

These three figures swinging in the void, we will soon hear their story, that of the eleven spectators who were held hostage by the terrorists in a corridor located on the balcony of the concert hall. Six of them told the Assize Court this tête-à-tête with terror that will last nearly two and a half hours until the final assault of the research and intervention brigade (BRI), at 12:19 am No one has been so close to the death givers who sowed devastation in Paris that night.

The first to take the stand is David Fritz-Goeppinger. This 23-year-old bartender at the time was upstairs when the first shots rang out in the pit at 9.47pm. Noticing a door at the end of the balcony, he began to join her by crawling between the seats. This door, which will soon close on his hopes of escape, leads to a cramped corridor where a few spectators have taken refuge.

A woman comes to him: “I’m pregnant, can I jump out the window?” ” David takes a look in the street and tells him that “No, she will break her legs.” Both will be, a few minutes later, two silhouettes suspended in the void.

“Help me, I’m pregnant! “

From the other side of the door, gunshots echoed on the balcony. The carnage from the pit spread upstairs. The hallway is a dead end. The window finally appears to David as an exit to try to reach the roof. He clings to an air vent, his hands bleed on the jail. “I weigh 90 kg, I understand that I will never be able to pull myself up with the force of my fingers. “ A young man joins him on the facade. His name is Sébastien. In the video, both appear in the frame of the same window, in the same desperate attempt to flee death.

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