These days, Émilie is not feeling well. On Sunday, she remained bedridden with a fever. This was already the case last year. “I think my body is somatizing a little as January 7 approaches. » The appointment is canceled. It is therefore in writing that she tells her story. Ten years later, the woman who is now a teacher in Indre has not forgotten any detail of this day of January 7, 2015.
At the time, Émilie was 25 years old and worked as a post-production manager for the Premières Lignes Télévision press agency, at 10, rue Nicolas-Appert, in Paris. “On the same level as Charlie Hebdo. » His colleague who comes back distraught from a cigarette break, others “war journalists” donning bulletproof vests, then the gunfire. “Not bursts, but like an execution. » He is « environ 11 h 30 ». The massacre has begun.
“I risked my life there”
Impossible to forget the amateur video where we hear one of the Kouachi brothers screaming “We killed Charlie” leaving the building, then the exchange of fire with a police patrol in the street. The images were shot by a colleague of Émilie. The Front Lines team had taken refuge on the roof. “Then we remained confined inside the building for a very long time before being evacuated to a small theater opposite. »
First there is astonishment. “I didn’t realize it at first I think. » Then awareness and fear. “We became paranoid. If a car was parked in one place on the street for too long, the police were called. If someone suspicious asked us for information about Charlie, we called the police. »
Émilie is an indirect victim of the attacks of January 7, 2015. She, who had always dreamed of leaving Paris, speaks of a « rupture ». “I realized, perhaps wrongly, that I was risking my life there. » Anxiety overcomes her. “I always told myself that an attack in the metro would be so easy to organize… As soon as a person seemed strange to me, I let the metro pass, sometimes several times. It was becoming unbearable. I ended up taking my car to go to work. With traffic jams, I had a 2.5 hour journey each morning. »
“Life decided for me”
It was during this period that Émilie met her future husband, living in Indre. “I refused to let him join me in Paris. » On November 13, 2015, a commando attacked the café terraces before causing death at the Bataclan. “Terraces that we used to frequent in the evening after work, with colleagues. » Emilie feels again “the urgency to leave Paris” and joined his companion in Indre. The return trips to the capital lasted several years. “My second pregnancy and the entry into kindergarten of my first forced me to settle in Indre. When I think about it, I'm not sure I really made choices. Life has decided for me, it suits me very well. »
The first times are hard. “I met other mothers at school and started to get back to some semblance of normal life. » She did not find work in her field, but with a photographer. “I was in charge of school photos. Which allowed me to discover the world of education. » A vocation is born. In 2023, it will enjoy its 3e pregnancy and parental leave to prepare for the school teacher recruitment competition (CRPE). “If it worked, I hoped to find THE job that suited me. » It's a success. “I think that's what I really needed, a job anchored in reality and to have this feeling of really serving something, of having a place in this world. »
“January 7 remains a complicated date for me, obviously, she continues. But, even the most negative experiences can come out positive. In the end, today, I am the happy mother of three children with a husband and a job that I love, in an environment that I have always dreamed of… What more could you want? »
