Nobody pays any attention to the grayish and dilapidated building, surrounded by a fence, which stands in the middle of Rue de la République, the pedestrian and shopping street in the center of Saint-Denis, a few steps from the Gothic basilica. . At the foot of the neighboring building, the hairdresser-barber who is sunbathing knows nothing of the history of this building. Just like an employee of the large post office located opposite the abandoned building. “It’s normal, she arrived in 2023”, slips a colleague. No one informed her that more than eight years ago, this building in the heart of old Saint-Denis entered the tragic history of France, through a break-in.
It was here that, on November 17, 2015, at nightfall, Abdelhamid Abaaoud came to hide, the operational leader of the attacks which bloodied the country four days earlier, striking at the Stade de France and the Bataclan and machine-gunning several restaurant terraces in eastern Paris. He is accompanied by another survivor of the terrace commando, Chakib Akrouh.
Abaaoud’s cousin, Hasna Aït Boulahcene, helped them find this cache and accompanied them. She was put in touch with Jawad Bendaoud, a slumlord who illegally occupies an apartment at the back of this condominium in poor condition, at the corner of 48, rue de la République and the petite rue du Corbillon, where the entrance, at number 2. Behind the carriage entrance, five buildings of different heights are juxtaposed in a U around a sad courtyard. The fugitives took refuge there, building C, on the Corbillon side, on the third floor.
A few hours later, this poor building promised to remain anonymous will experience a war scene. Before dawn, the RAID has crisscrossed the neighborhood and launches its assault. It will last for long hours, during which the inhabitants, forty-five families (eighty people), hide under the beds or in the cupboards. The terrorists, who refused to surrender, suffered more than fifteen hundred shots. They perish: Chakib Akrouh blows himself up with his belt, Abdelhamid Abaaoud dies as a result of the blast and Hasna Aït Boulahcene, asphyxiated in the rubble. The floor collapses, the building is devastated.
Nature has taken back its rights
More than eight years have passed and everything remains as it is. On a beautiful morning at the end of April, a small team from the municipality of Saint-Denis is preparing to open the door of 2, rue du Corbillon. As is often the case on Mondays, the shopping street is quiet. “I am entering the site with you for the first time”, confides Katy Bontinck, first deputy to the socialist mayor of Saint-Denis responsible for the fight against substandard housing and urban renovation. A shadow passes over his face. “It does something to me, she says. At the time, I lived just behind it, I can say what a shock this assault was, the neighborhood was completely cordoned off, the night was very traumatic. » The residents left the building in a hurry, not to return: upstairs, a towel and a t-shirt which were white in 2015 still hang on an old tancarville hanging from a railing.
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