PARIS (Reuters) – The following are reactions from survivors, families of victims and leading politicians to the guilty verdicts by a French court on Wednesday for all 20 men judged at trial for the 2015 Paris attacks in which 130 people were killed by Islamist militants:
FRANCOIS HOLLANDE, FRANCE’S PRESIDENT AT THE TIME OF THE ATTACKS
“Those who were guilty were sentenced in accordance with the law. France has shown that our democracy can be strict without calling into question its rules and its principles.”
“Beyond the sentences, I’m thinking today of all the victims. Their wounds remain and their pain will never go away.”
ARTHUR DENOUVEAUX, SURVIVOR AND HEAD OF A VICTIMS’ ASSOCIATION
“The verdict is fair.”
“When things like that happen you can’t have reparation but you can have justice. Justice cannot heal everything but it puts an exclamation point at the end of it. It was justice for sure, but it’s not healing everything.”
PHILIPPE DUPERRON, FATHER OF A VICTIM AND HEAD OF A VICTIMS’ ASSOCIATION
“I am convinced that the extreme severity (of the verdict) will satisfy a number of our members and a number of victims.”
“For my part I considered that the sentence was not the reparation that the victims awaited. The reparation that the victims awaited was in the trial being held, in the possibility that has been offered to all the victims to express themselves in court and to drop their pain and their suffering.”
ANNE HIDALGO, PARIS MAYOR
“Justice has been served. Against inhumanity, it’s our democracy’s strength to answer with justice the attacks that have plunged our city and our country in mourning. Paris remembers and will always stand by the victims and their families.”
MARINE LE PEN, HEAD OF FAR-RIGHT ‘NATIONAL RALLY’ PARTY
“Salah Abdeslam’s life sentence is a relief for all of France. Tonight I have a thought for all the victims’ relatives, whose pain will never cease to exist. Our duty now is to wipe out Islamist fundamentalism.”
(Reporting by Clotaire Achi and Tangi Salaun, additional reporting by Juliette Jabkhiro, editing by Grant McCool)
