I read with interest Robert McLiam Wilson’s article on how the Nice attack is remembered in France (“In a deserted courtroom, the grim details of the Nice atrocity go mostly unnoticed”, Comment). He raises the question of what a trial can achieve when the guilty party died at the scene of his crime. It’s a question I’ve been asking myself ever since I escaped the attack: what would justice look like for the 86 victims and their loved ones?
In some ways, a trial seems pointless when Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel is not there to answer for his crimes. However, in France as in the UK, trials are one of the ways we try to make sense of senseless acts. McLiam Wilson emphasises how much time has been allocated to letting witnesses and loved ones of the victims speak. I’m glad. If we can’t bring back the dead, at least we can honour them by remembering not only how they died, but how they lived.
