Molins, Hollande and Cazeneuve facing the questions of the victims

It has been three weeks since survivors and families of victims marched in front of the specially composed Assize Court of Paris to recount the horror experienced on July 14, 2016, the endless trauma generated by this evening, and the questions it still raises. , six years later. These do not concern the involvement of the accused, which hardly anyone is interested in, but relate to two themes which have emerged over the course of the depositions: the removal of organs carried out on victims without the families having been informed; the security device on the Promenade des Anglais on the evening of the attack which killed 86 people.

Monday, October 10, the civil parties gave up the bar to those from whom they hoped for answers. François Molins was expected on the first theme; Bernard Cazeneuve on the second. We have seen the difference between the word of a magistrate and that of a politician: the words of the former Paris prosecutor have calmed down; those of the former Minister of the Interior have lost their way.

In front of an unusually large audience, the court first welcomed François Molins, who was responsible for all initiations of terrorism investigations as Paris prosecutor between 2012 and 2018. Ten days earlier, the trial had been shaken by the testimony of Anne Gourvès, whose 12-year-old daughter died on the evening of July 14. This mother had discovered, two years after the death, that all the organs of her daughter had been removed during an autopsy of which she had never been informed. Fourteen victims underwent this mass organ harvesting. Some families only understood this at the hearing.

Heard by the court in mid-September, Gérald Quatrehomme, director of the medico-legal institute (IML) in Nice where these samples had been taken, had taken refuge behind the “usual protocol” and the “requisitions” from the Paris prosecutor’s office. The explanations of François Molins, who took tweezers, “aware that this is a painful subject for the victims”shed new light on this blind spot in the procedure.

Former Paris prosecutor François Molins applauded

There was indeed a request from the Paris public prosecutor’s office to the Nice forensic doctors to “carry out any useful sampling”in case the investigations require additional analyses, but the request was obviously misunderstood. “It is not up to the magistrates to assess what to take on a medico-legal plan, we trust the doctors. The drama in this story is perhaps a communication problem. »

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