Ten years after the Charlie Hebdo attack of January 7, 2015, Michel Catalanothe printer held hostage in Dammartin-en-Goële in Seine-et-Marne by the Charlie Hebdo killers, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, is still fighting to overcome trauma. Guest of RTL this Monday January 6, he publishes a book, The Dammartin printer“to move forward”.
“I'm getting better, but it's still difficult, especially during these periods. We can't forget, it's ingrained in me. I think about it at least once a day. Most of the time, I have something that brings me back to that, like a noise, an attack, an annoyance… It's like a scar. When you press on it, it still hurts,” confides Michel Catalano.
While he was drinking coffee with Lilian, one of his employees, the two terrorists arrived in the parking lot of his companytwo days after killing twelve people in the premises of the satirical newspaper, dressed entirely in black. He says he first believed “that they were gendarmes”, before understanding, “very quickly”, when he saw “the rocket launcher that they had in their hands”.
“I did everything so that they wouldn’t get angry”
Before facing the two individuals, Michel Catalano pushed Lilian to hide. “It allowed me to concentrate on this task that I had, to do everything so that he came out alive. It gave me the necessary strength to converse with them. I did everything so that they wouldn't get angry. I was convinced I was going to die“, he tells RTL.
Once the assault is made and the Kouachi brothers are killed by a GIGN team, Lilian and Michel Catalano are saved. And then, there is “after”, and in particular “the battle with the insurers”. “At my first meeting with the expert, I was told that because I was not taking medication and had returned to work, it was that everything was fine“, regrets the 57-year-old printer.
A long and difficult journey, overcome thanks to his wife, his children and his friends, without whom he “would never have arrived”.
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