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Main challenge of the Paris terror trial 'is to show the world that, in the end, justice has won'

A French court is to hand down verdicts Wednesday against 20 men accused over the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris, after a marathon 10-month trial that reopened the scars of modern France's worst peacetime atrocity. One hundred and thirty people were killed on the night of November 13, 2015, when a team of Islamic State group jihadists laid siege to the French capital, attacking the national sports stadium, bars and the Bataclan concert hall. The trial that began on September 8, 2021, has been the biggest in modern French history, the culmination of a six-year, multi-country investigation whose findings run to more than a million pages. All the attackers were killed in the aftermath of the assault except Salah Abdeslam, who was captured alive by police four months later. Abdeslam is the key suspect among the 20 accused on trial, six of whom have been tried in absentia. If convicted, he faces the toughest life sentence available under French law. Joining FRANCE 24 is Clemence Witt, Lawyer of the foreign victim's families. For her, "this trial was an extraordinary one. More than 3000 victims were represented during this trial, 400 of them being heard by courts. A special courtroom was built and there were almost 150 days of hearings. So we have all this context, absolutely extraordinary. And I think the main challenge of this trial is to show to the world that, in the end, justice has won."