Ten years ago, Arthur Dénouveaux was in the Bataclan concert hall as attackers stormed the building and murdered 90 people. He told RFI how life has changed in the decade since, and why he hopes the ten-year anniversary will mark a turning point.
"It starts when the clocks go back, to be honest. Paris has that same light, the same damp weather it did then."
Dénouveaux, who escaped through an emergency exit on the night of 13 November 2015, thinks of France's worst ever terror attacks long before the commemorations start.
"What comes back is a sort of tenderness for the person I was back then. And then sadness at finding myself still tied to all this 10 years on, at thinking about all the people who died, at having met so many grieving families."
Today, he heads victims' association Life for Paris, co-founded with other survivors months after the attacks across Paris and its suburbs. The role means he's often asked to relive the events – something he says is getting easier with time.
"I feel better than last year, better than the year before that and so on," he told RFI a few days before the 10th anniversary. "Time does a lot, so does justice."
His recovery has involved finding a place for the memories of 13 November in his life now.
"It doesn't haunt me. I've done enough psychotherapy to be able to keep it very fresh in my mind, and it's really important to me to hold on to those memories and not lose them, but also to put them at a distance," he said.
"There's real ambivalence – I don't want to lose those memories, but I don't want them to have the power to intrude on my life. And now it's been seven or eight years since I had any kind of panic attack, so it's working."
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'Perpetual unease'
Yet Dénouveaux, who testified at the trial over the attacks and has written a book about their aftermath, says he continues to live with "perpetual unease".
"I don't live the way I did before. I tell myself it could happen again, and for me it's an enormous frustration.
"I think what I share with all victims of terrorism is the wish to be the last – to tell myself that what I went through was so awful, and I speak about it so often, that no one will ever want to do it again. And unfortunately that's not the case."
The unease, he believes, applies to France as a whole. The Bataclan attack and others, as well as years of heightened security and government warnings, have made the threat of terrorist strikes a daily presence in generations of people's lives.
Dénouveaux says the 2015 attacks helped usher in what he calls "a sort of management by fear" by France's political leaders, whereby a continual war footing precludes meaningful debates.
The country declared a state of emergency in the wake of the attacks that would end up lasting nearly two years. Some of the emergency powers were made permanent under a sweeping 2017 anti-terrorism law, which has since been followed by several others expanding the reach of the security services.
"We've changed the gauge since 2015," said Dénouveaux. "Now we conduct surveillance of social media and messaging apps so people are arrested very early when their plans are still in the very preliminary stages. So all it takes is bar room talk, almost, to make people afraid."
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Opportunities missed and taken
He sees the political response as a missed opportunity to diagnose deep-rooted problems. Two months after the 2015 attacks, then prime minister Manual Valls declared: "To explain is already to seek to excuse somewhat."
Dénouveaux disagrees. "We've focused a lot on how young people are being radicalised. But why are they susceptible to being radicalised in the first place, and what is it about the basic project of our society that they don't like?" he asks.
Other reactions give him more hope. He is encouraged by the flurry of documentaries, debates and other initiatives coinciding with the 10th anniversary. "It seems to me that we’re building peace from the bottom, not from the top," he told RFI. "Maybe that works just the same."
France marks decade of 2015 Paris attacks
In his book, Dénouveaux argues that France's leaders "preferred a minute of silence to time for reflection". But that doesn't mean he sees no value in commemoration.
"I think it’s really important for France to have a moment of unity. We never really had one after 13 November [2015] because of the state of emergency – we never had big national rallies," he said.
This year, for the first time, the anniversary is being marked with a televised ceremony and a speech by President Emmanuel Macron.
Dénouveaux hopes it will feel meaningful. "I think it's a moment of national unity we need to have, even if it’s very brief, just to say to ourselves: we're here together to think about 13 November, but also to move on."
This article was adapted from an interview in French by RFI's Arnaud Pontus.
