A fundraiser for Sonia, a French woman whose testimony helped authorities locate two terrorists involved in the November 2015 attacks in Paris, has reached 440,000 euros.
The fundraiser, set up by the organisation Life for Paris to honour the victims of the November 2015 attacks, initially had the modest goal of raising €2,500.
By the time it closed on Sunday 1 February, it had received almost 12,000 donations. In 2016, Sonia became the first person in France to enter witness protection after providing French police with crucial information that led to the arrest of two assailants involved in the attacks.
Balancing security powers with civil liberties after Paris attacks
Possible terror plot link
Sonia’s story shook the nation after a documentary recounting her experience aired a decade after the attacks, on 13 November 2025.
After watching the attack on the Stade de France stadium unfold live on television, she found herself face-to-face with one of the assailants, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the very next day.
A friend whom she had been housing had received a phone call from abroad, asking her to “help out a cousin from Syria”. Sonia soon encountered the terrorist, whose hand she shook “was still covered in blood”. She asked the man if he had been involved in the attacks, to which he replied, “yes”.
Final words at Paris attacks trial and complaints over compensation
On 15 November, she decided to call the French authorities and provide her eyewitness testimony to the General Directorate for Internal Security. She has since had to change her name, relocate her family, and continues to live under police protection.
Security powers and civil liberties
“Her daily life is filled with constraints, isolation, and material difficulties that are hard to grasp when you are not in her shoes. She never asked to be a hero. She never asked for a medal or glory. She simply did what she thought was right, at the risk of her own life. Today, it is up to us to do what is right for her,” reads the fundraising page.
The series of coordinated attacks took place in Paris and in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis on 13 November 2015. The tragedy left 132 people dead and at least 416 injured, shaking the nation in what remains France’s deadliest terrorist attack in modern history.
