REVIEW: V13: Chronicle of a Trial by Emmanuel Carrère
A moving, hard-hitting account of the Paris attacks trial by France’s leading nonfiction writer.
Nearly every day for ten months, from September 2021 to June 2022, life on the Île de la Cité in central Paris came to a standstill. The most expensive and complex trial in French history—featuring twenty men accused of involvement in the 2015 attacks on the Bataclan and other sites across Paris—was underway. More than three hundred lawyers represented thousands of victims and the accused, all of whom were given the chance to testify. The case ran to more than a million pages. And, nearly every day for ten months, Emmanuel Carrère showed his press pass, walked through a metal detector, and took a seat in a windowless courtroom to bear witness.
V13 isn’t so much the story of a trial but of the community that formed around it—a city within the city, home to the innocent and the accused, the forgiving and the vengeful, the outspoken and the silent. Carrère introduces us to lawyers, survivors, family members, and above all the defendants, assembling in painstaking detail a human portrait of the crime. What emerges from these pages is a study of good and evil—and a philosophical journey through the borderlands between the two. Not since Eichmann in Jerusalem has there been a book of this scope and ambition.
CW – There is one small section in particular which has the Graphic testimony of survivors but the whole book is suffused with the pain of the event and the intentions and background of the people who carried out the attacks. The content of Islamic State terror videos is mentioned.
Review
I’m not going to lie. This one was hard at times. I had seen the arc and debated whether or not to read it. I went back and forth. Saved it to a “possibles” list and then removed it then saved it again. Finally I decided to go for it. I remember the reports of the attacks on Friday, November 13, 2015 – Vendredi 13. A few years ago I watched the three episode documentary about it on Netflix which I rewatched as I read this book.
Emmanuel Carrère is a non-fiction writer who was offered the chance to cover the trial and write short reports about what was going on for the newspaper L’Obs. The first day of the long trial, the court was packed but soon a smaller devoted band of observers settled in, along with (most of the time) the defendants, the defense attorneys, many of the plaintiff attorneys, and the judges. I was interested in how French trials differ from what I’m used to watching in US/UK trials (and in all honesty, most of my knowledge comes from Court TV, TV shows, and the few times I’ve served on a jury).
Carrère begins to get to know the people around him and learns individual stories of survivors and victim’s relatives. He can even talk to a few of the (three) defendants who are not being held in prison. Without turning into a lecturer, he describes and explains what is going on. Soon people are meeting in a nearby brasserie and discussing what took place in the courtroom that day. Bets are eventually (loosely) placed on whether or not defendants would speak in their defense (they don’t have to) or even be in court (also don’t have to). The various attorneys are profiled. While some were observer favorites, some, Carrère said, ‘we knew would make us yawn before they even opened their mouths.’
If he went into the trial with preconceived notions of innocence or guilt, I couldn’t tell. The essays range from the background of the defendants, the political situation that could have fostered what happened, the backgrounds of the plaintiffs, what actually happened during the attacks, what happened afterwards including to the innocent people in the building that was raided days after the attack where the last two of the suicide commando and a (female) cousin died via explosive vest. The cousin wanted out, btw. It’s clear that the majority of the living defendants are not criminal masterminds – to put it kindly. And yes, some of the defendants are actually thought to be dead in Syria or are in prison elsewhere but as they were known to be on their way to Paris to take part, the assumption is that they were involved and thus are “on trial.”
There are things that Carrère says that may irk people. He is blunt about sitting through five weeks of plaintiff testimony and how much of what these people say is similar and yet also horrible to hear. He has some scathing things to say about both the French and the Belgian police and intelligence officers. He is pleased that the law is scrupulously adhered to and praises the defense attorneys as well as the plaintiff attorneys. He even mentions one relative who, after her testimony about her dead daughter, ends with an exhortation to the defense side to do their jobs well – I guess so that true justice will be served.
Some of what is mentioned will be difficult to read and was horrific for the people who were there and experienced it. Though 130 people died during the attacks, one man suffered for over two years afterwards before taking his own life leading to, as Carrère says, there being actually 131 killed. I think that Carrère writes with a great deal of empathy and in an accessible way (although the book is translated from the original French). I’m glad I took the plunge and read it. B
~Jayne
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