In V13: Chronicle of a Trial, acclaimed French writer Emmanuel Carrère sets out to chronicle the legal aftermath of the 2015 Paris terror attacks—an undertaking unmatched in scope within contemporary French history. Over nearly a year of proceedings, a specially constructed courtroom at the Palais de Justice accommodated scores of victims, witnesses, lawyers, and defendants. The testimonies, arguments, and counterarguments that emerged from this monumental setting form the core of Carrère’s account: a rare, multi-layered exploration of how a modern democracy grapples with collective trauma, terror, and the profound moral questions lurking behind them.
Carrère, long admired for blending memoir, biography, journalism, and true-crime storytelling, brings his trademark sensitivity and intellectual rigor to this monumental case. He painstakingly renders the emotional landscape of the victims: their raw testimonies of lives fractured and forever changed. At the same time, he underscores acts of profound bravery that punctuated the night’s terror. We learn of two members of the crime squad who, defying standard procedure, went into the Bataclan without backup, a selfless choice that undoubtedly saved lives. Likewise, Carrère highlights the unsung heroism of emergency services who tended to the wounded and dying under conditions as perilous as they were chaotic. Yet where French authorities often rose to the occasion, Carrère notes moments of baffling inadequacy from abroad. The Belgian police, crucial to understanding the terror cell’s origins, refused to appear in person. Instead, they offered testimony hidden behind television screens—this, after having shown their faces openly on Belgian TV. This tension between courage and reticence, between moral backbone and procedural evasiveness, runs like a fault line through the trial, illustrating that the pursuit of truth is rarely straightforward.
“Two members of the crime squad, in a moment of extraordinary courage, entered the Bataclan without backup, helping to stem the further loss of life.”
Carrère’s inquiry broadens as he observes the trial’s attempts to untangle the complex web of responsibility. Former President François Hollande takes the stand in what might seem an odd legal twist, neither victim nor defendant. Hollande’s testimony raises uncomfortable questions about the chain of cause and effect. Do we trace blame back to French airstrikes in Syria, or do we lay it at the feet of those who seized upon these actions as a pretext for mass murder? Carrère lets the courtroom’s debates play out, asking readers to confront a thorny moral landscape: whether the state’s choices abroad legitimise—however indirectly—such atrocities, or whether terrorists alone bear moral responsibility, no matter their grievances. In doing so, he forces us to consider that understanding an enemy’s rationale does not condone their violence, yet failing to reflect on the roots of conflict leaves us ill-equipped to prevent its recurrence.
In another pivotal section, Carrère questions whether the trial is truly judging the architects of the carnage. Most of the direct perpetrators did not survive that horrific night—dead by suicide vest or shootout—leaving the dock filled instead with alleged accomplices, enablers, friends, and facilitators. Are these men on trial merely guilty of being helpful mates who provided a car, a hideout, or a weapon, or are they as morally culpable as those who strapped on explosives and fired Kalashnikovs into crowds? The French state must have its trial, the victims and their families some semblance of closure. But is it right, or is it simply the best imperfect avenue toward a reckoning with crimes too monstrous to fully comprehend? Carrère does not provide a definitive answer, nor is it his place to do so. Instead, he lays bare the uneasy compromise that modern justice systems must sometimes accept.
Another particularly poignant section focuses on the attacks at the Stade de France. Compared to the Bataclan’s staggering toll, the bombing outside the stadium claimed one life, but its ripples stretched far and wide. Carrère details how a young news journalist, covering what should have been a simple sporting event, found herself an unwitting casualty. Wounded by a screw or bolt from an explosive device, she underwent surgery to remove it, and now keeps it—a small piece of twisted metal—as a stark, physical reminder of that night’s sudden brutality. This haunting detail underscores that even when the body count is lower, the psychological scars can be profound and enduring.
His inquiry widens as he acknowledges similar trials taking place in nearby rooms: proceedings that involve other terrorists or criminals, and those who have left dark stains on European history. Venturing into these parallel stories, he draws instructive comparisons to different forms of extremism, including far-right terrorism, and he invokes infamous precedents. At one point, he recalls the case of Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief tried in France for war crimes. The lawyer Jacques Vergès who represented Barbie, faced with the Herculean moral challenge of defending a figure widely regarded as a monster, urged a difficult perspective. “You’re not innocent, but neither are you a monster,” he told Barbie, arguing that to brand the accused as inhuman absolves us of examining the conditions that produce such horrors. By failing to understand the historical and political contexts that pave the way for brutality—be it in Algeria, Vietnam, Kabul, or Iraq—we risk allowing new atrocities to emerge unhindered by lessons learned from the past.
Carrère uses such moments not to excuse the perpetrators of the Paris attacks, but to confront a paradox: understanding need not mean justifying. Instead, it can serve as a crucial bulwark against repetition, a call to scrutinise the chain of events that gives rise to terror and to recognise that monsters are made, not born. In this sense, V13 does more than bear witness to a singular tragedy. It illuminates a broader moral landscape and insists that grappling with complexity is an essential step in preventing future violence.
“Refusing to engage with the perpetrators’ humanity—even in the most horrifying cases—risks leaving us blind to the conditions that make such horrors possible.”
In a moving interlude, Carrère gives voice to an extraordinary instance of dialogue and understanding forged from unimaginable grief. Georges Salines, who lost his daughter Lola at the Bataclan, and Azdyne Amimour, whose son was one of the attackers, found themselves facing each other across the unbridgeable gulf of that night’s violence. Rather than recoiling in hatred or seeking isolation in sorrow, they came together to write a book. Their co-authorship stands as a radical act of empathy and inquiry. By speaking openly, they acknowledge not only their respective losses but the tangled roots that give rise to terror. They offer a model of what can happen when anguish and accountability share a space: a humanising confrontation that, if not healing the wound, at least illuminates it—allowing us to reflect, to learn, and to understand.
“By speaking openly, they acknowledge not only their respective losses but the tangled roots that give rise to terror.”
Yet understanding these forces is no easy task. Carrère wrestles with the sobering question of how certain second- and third-generation migrants raised in Europe make the leap from petty crime and drug dealing to the Islamic State’s ranks, where scenes as barbaric as kicking a severed head around like a football, or dragging bodies behind a car have been reported. How does one move from everyday delinquency to enacting such cruelty? And then there are those who joined the so-called caliphate yet chose to simply look away from the savagery around them, pretending the violence doesn’t exist even as it unfolds in front of them. Such contradictions elude simple explanation, forcing us to confront that ideology, alienation, warped camaraderie, and self-deception can combine in ways that defy our grasp. Carrère’s honest bafflement becomes our own.
All of this is brought into English by John Lambert, whose translation deserves particular praise. Translators so often go uncelebrated, yet Lambert’s deft handling of Carrère’s prose ensures the text retains its precision, its emotional resonance, and its intellectual clarity. He brings forward the nuances of French legal and cultural references, the shifts in tone—from journalistic reportage to profound moral reflection—and the intricate layers of witness testimony. Without Lambert’s careful stewardship, the full force of Carrère’s writing might have been dulled. Instead, his contribution preserves the book’s urgency and gravity, allowing Anglophone readers to experience the unfolding drama as vividly as those in the original French.
“If we refuse to understand how and why atrocities occur, we risk leaving ourselves vulnerable to their recurrence.”
Ultimately, V13: Chronicle of a Trial stands not merely as a historical record, but as a searching meditation on the tangled relationship between horror and humanity, empathy and indignation, understanding and moral condemnation. By illuminating the testimonies of victims, the moral struggles of legal representatives, the perspectives of a former head of state, and the inexplicable journeys of those who embrace extremism, Carrère—and, by extension, Lambert—challenge us to look beyond simplistic labels. While some critics may lament the absence of certain granular details, it’s worth acknowledging that Carrère worked within the confines of his original source material. In my view, the balance he strikes is just right: the text deserves to be read widely, and an overly detail-heavy prose might deter some readers. Of course, those who crave more exhaustive data and deeper analysis can turn to the many other books that examine terrorism, jihadism, and the Islamic State with granular specificity.
Authoritarianism (5) Books (5) Capitalism (7) China (4) Class (5) Climate Change (5) Conservative Government (33) Conspiracy Theories (4) COVID-19 (5) Creeping Fascism (11) Crime and Punishment (4) Donald J Trump (4) Economics (5) Film (6) France (10) GB News (4) Imperialism (5) Iraq War (4) Israel (5) Keir Starmer (4) Labour Party (8) Marxist Theory (8) Media (4) Messing Around (6) Migrants (10) Palestine (5) Police (5) Protest (12) Russia (6) Social Media (6) Suella Braverman (8) Trade Unionism (5) United States of America (18) War (9) Working Class (4)
Leave a Reply